We, the Representatives, and Women Leadership of South African Municipalities gathered in Benoni under the auspices of SALGA Women’s Caucus in partnership with dplg, on the occasion of our National Summit convened from 19-21 June 2005; reaffirm our commitment to the SALGA National Conference 2004 Cape Town Declaration and Resolutions, including the UCLGA resolutions of 2005, on realizing our Developmental Local Government mandate including Gender Equality and Equity.

Inspired by the keynote address of the Honorable Deputy Minister of the Department of Provincial and Local Government: Ms Nomatyala Hangana,

Appreciating the participation of Women Mayors and Executive Mayors and Deputy Mayors, Women Speakers and Deputy Speakers, Members of the Mayoral Committees, Chief whips, Councillors, City Managers and their Deputies and SALGA Senior Women Managers.

• That the 50% quota has now been incorporated into the SALGA Constitution but there are no monitoring mechanisms to realize this commitment;

• That the UCLGA 2005 Resolutions of improving the women representation in the UCLGA Executive Committee to at least five women, is not in keeping with the SALGA position on the 50% quota and the African Union Declaration;

• The need for strategies and programmes to ensure the increased representation and participation of women in Local Government.

• The lack of professional and technical skills required in Local Government for engendered service delivery, IDPs’ Budgets, Local Economic Growth and Development, Financial Management, Performance Management Systems and Information Systems.

• The need for capacity building strategies and programmes for women councilors, officials and women from our communities as well as strategies for retention of skills and for training future women leaders in Local Government;

• The need for political will to implement the Beijing Declaration to promote Gender Equality and women empowerment;

• Lack of biased programmes for the empowerment of targeted groups such as women, girl – children, physically challenged people, youth and the elderly;

• Lack of evaluation of progress made by SALGA and municipalities on the implementation of Gender Equity and Women Empowerment programmes;

• The lack of support mechanisms by South African women local government leaders for women in Africa facing ravaging wars in some African countries;

• Minimal exchange of information and best practices amongst women leaders and managers;

• To the implementation of the SALGA National Conference Resolutions on Women in Local Government Gender Equity and Equality and also monitor and evaluate progress made by municipalities on an ongoing basis.

• To engage all political parties represented in the South African National Government and urge them to adopt and implement strategies to promote the 50/50 representation in Local Government.

• SALGA to initiate and facilitate the formation of relevant structures within the UCLGA that will deal with gender and women empowerment issues (including peace keeping efforts in Africa);

• SALGA will continuously engage political parties to adopt and implement the zebra system during the 2005/06 local government elections;

• SALGA and dplg to continue training women councillors and officials on various skills development to build their capacity to efficiently carry out their tasks and to ensure retention of skills;

• SALGA and dplg to ensure that the IEC and other civil society organizations provide voter education and Local Governance Training to women candidates for Local Government Elections;

• SALGA women and men in Local Government Gender Committees to monitor gender mainstreaming in all the work of Local Government, including the development of gender disaggregated data that should inform our IDP’s and Budgets;

• To encourage Women’s caucuses in municipalities to develop and implement programmes that realize the Beijing Declaration and similar Conventions that seek to empower women including targeted groups such as the Youth, Elderly and the Physically Challenged;

• SALGA to ensure that municipalities improve and accelerate engendered service delivery and economic development in order to eradicate poverty and reduce unemployment, especially amongst women;

• SALGA and South African municipalities to develop and implement strategies and programmes to respond to challenges of communicable illnesses - HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, etc - which diseases affect women mostly.