Keypoints:
- 63 percent of assessed activities remain incomplete
- Civil society has driven much of the progress
- Second action plan faces tougher implementation test
SOUTH Africa’s efforts to protect women from violence and strengthen their participation in peace and security remain seriously incomplete, with a new review finding that almost two-thirds of activities assessed under the country’s first Women, Peace and Security action plan have yet to be fully achieved.
The assessment comes as South Africa confronts renewed outrage over gender-based violence and femicide following the killing of women in Ekurhuleni, Gauteng, which prompted President Cyril Ramaphosa to address the nation on September 29.
The review of South Africa’s 2020–2025 National Action Plan (NAP) on Women, Peace and Security suggests that while measurable gains were made during the five-year period, implementation was not fully embedded in government institutions, budgets and accountability systems.
Progress remains uneven
The findings were presented at a review and validation meeting in Pretoria hosted by the Dutch embassy in South Africa and the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation (IJR).
According to findings presented at the meeting, 29 of the plan’s 79 activities have now been achieved, compared with 20 in 2022.
Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, board chair of the IJR, said the figures demonstrated progress while exposing persistent weaknesses in implementation.
‘The findings are honest. In 2022, 20 of the 79 activities in the plan were achieved. Today, 29 are. That is real progress. But about 63 percent are still not fully achieved,’ she said.
Madlala-Routledge said communities and civil society organisations had carried much of the implementation burden, while dedicated funding, accountability and consistent monitoring remained inadequate.
‘This is progress without full institutionalisation,’ she said.
She added that political commitments would have limited effect without the institutional authority, capacity and legitimacy needed to implement them.
‘Therefore, authority, capacity and legitimacy are three elements that are necessary for an action to satisfy the meaning of “political will”,’ she said.
Civil society drives gains
The review identified civil society engagement as one of the strongest areas of progress.
Community organisations have conducted awareness campaigns, training programmes, dialogue, mediation and conflict-prevention initiatives involving women, young people, parliamentarians, traditional leaders and faith-based organisations.
The development and promotion of the National Peace Charter was also highlighted as an important contribution to the prevention pillar of the NAP.
But the review found a significant gap between community-level initiatives and formal government planning.
Although Women, Peace and Security commitments feature across national laws, policies and gender frameworks, their incorporation into departmental strategies, budgets, performance systems and accountability mechanisms remains inconsistent.
Similar weaknesses were identified at provincial and municipal levels, where the commitments of the first NAP were not systematically incorporated into planning, budgeting, monitoring and accountability processes.
The review recommends that South Africa’s second-generation NAP establish clearer links between national commitments and implementation across all three spheres of government.
The distinction is important: civil society has succeeded in creating community-level entry points, but this has not been matched by equivalent institutionalisation within provincial and local government.
Violence sharpens urgency
The findings carry particular weight amid South Africa’s continuing gender-based violence and femicide crisis.
In his September 29 address on violence against women, Ramaphosa described the continuing attacks as ‘a source of profound pain and national shame’.
The Presidency said 11 women’s bodies had been found in Ekurhuleni since July, although police had not established that the killings were the work of a single perpetrator.
Ramaphosa also announced a national case-recovery operation focused on unresolved murders, attempted murders, rapes and other serious sexual offences involving women and children, alongside audits and recovery plans for outstanding cases.
At the Pretoria meeting, Mmabatho Makena, Secretary General of the African Women’s Leaders Network South Africa, delivered a stark assessment of the situation.
‘We are not dealing with crime, we are dealing with a war against women,’ she said.
Her remarks captured the central challenge facing the Women, Peace and Security agenda: national commitments must ultimately translate into greater security for women in their everyday lives.
Second action plan faces tougher test
South Africa’s first National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security covered 2020–2025 and was intended to strengthen women’s participation, protection and leadership in peace and security processes.
The review argues that its successor will require stronger institutional structures, clearer accountability, dedicated resources and more effective monitoring.
The test for the second-generation plan will therefore be whether South Africa can move beyond policy commitments and make implementation measurable across national, provincial and local government.
With violence against women continuing to expose serious weaknesses in protection and prevention, the next National Action Plan is likely to be judged less by the ambitions it sets out than by whether those commitments translate into greater safety and accountability on the ground.
