Summit 2018: Lobatse Town Council

Entry 13594

Lobatse is a town in South-Eastern Botswana, 70 Kilometres south of the capital Gaborone situated in a valley running north towards Gaborone. Lobatse has a population of 30883 the town is an administrative district with a town. Lobatse Town Council is situated in LobatseThe council’s gender management system includes the gender coordinator, gender focal person, the departmental gender focal persons and the women’s commissioner. The gender committee has regular meetings of its own and scheduled in the council’s schedule of meetings. The Lobatse Town Council Gender champion is Mr Oganne Gontse who is the Deputy Town Clerk and its gender focal person is Mrs. Snowball Office.The council has an annual activity plan derived from the Gender Action Plan. It is in the process of developing a gender policy. 44% of the council management are women. Women have also taken up leadership roles such as the current Mayor of the town and Town clerk. Women such as the Finance and Works Committee chair some committees within the council and the youth focal person is a young woman. There are also women working as mechanical engineers, budget officers within the council. Women contribute to the council’s decision making through committees such as the district disability working committee, youth empowerment meetings and the youth focal person sits in the adjudication board that assesses proposals for the youth development fund.The town council’s workspace is highly gender sensitive. Discussions and meetings held within the council are gender sensitive and the council mainstreams gender in the various activities that occur in the within different departments. The council keeps sex dis-aggregated data and the distribution of resources for initiatives and interventions focuses on women. Furthermore, the council has posters around its premises displaying gender related messages.Under Local Economic Development there is 56% of the council’s market stalls have been allocated to women .There are entrepreneurship finance schemes, like the Youth Development Fund and Economic Empowerment , SHAA that are linked to council that benefit women, men, people living with disability, and youth. The council has also arranged with external sources of finances such as the YDF, the poverty eradication scheme, the women’s empowerment fund to promote access to finance for local entrepreneurs, especially women, PWD and the youth. 74% of funds from financial schemes in the council go towards women empowermentLobatse Town Council gender budget for the 2017 to 2018.

Category	Budget 2017	Budget 2018
Resources allocated to promoting gender equality in decision-making and public participation	$48 433P468,833	$25 907P250,780
Resources allocated to promoting gender equality/family friendly/ youth and disability friendly policies and practices	$12 077P116,906	$12 077P116,906
Resources allocated to gender-responsive local economic development	$105 409P1,020,360	$98 837P956,745
Resources allocated to promoting gender/youth/PWD responsive projects on climate change	$1 395 273P13,506,300	$1 577 562P15,270,800

For climate change and sustainable development, the council hosts clean up campaigns every year, which entail recycling competitions where individuals show case goods made from recycled material. In 2017, there was equal participation of women and men in the competition. The council has housing schemes in which more women than men do have allocated houses. It also has a water sanitation committee, which handles all issues related to water and sanitation and an education, social health committee. Both committees have a fair representation on women in them.The council does not have any initiatives under the SRHR and HIV/AIDS area, but is a stakeholder on such issues. The council sometimes invites district health committee to lead discussion on the subject matter, during morning prayers. There is equal access to treatment by all members of the community from health facilities. Health facilities have wheel chair ramps to facilitate building access to PWDs in wheel chairs.

Entry 13596

Council has carried out various activities towards ending violence. These include hosting commemoration events for International Women’s Day, the 16 days of Activism against gender-based violence, which is well attended by the community and has great support from the district committee. The council held a Gender vs. Culture workshop, which invited traditional healers, pastors and community elders in discussion about practices that perpetuate GBV. A workshop on the “I stories” for men was also held in collaboration with Gender Links. There council hosts wellness days for the community various times a year where some of the activities include HIV/AIDS testing and discussions relating to GBV. There council has pledged through an agreement to hire more women in the council. The council has developed 2017-2019 a road map, which the mayor launched in 2017 as a driver of change nominated by the council. The council also has signed an MOU with Gender Links Botswana under sunrise campaign. The council will carry out this project this year to train the women survivors on Entrepreurship skill.The council has three active Facebook pages, Lobatse Town council page, Lobatse District Committee page and the Mayor’s Facebook page. The council has pamphlets that outline the services of the gender committee. The gender committee takes pictures of the work it does and displays them on social media platforms.The challenge faced by the gender committee is balancing their core work and the work of the gender committee, which requires a lot of time too. Members have resolved this challenge by working overtime or outside working hours to ensure the execution of gender committee activities.Members of the committee appreciate that perseverance is an essential quality in the work that they do, that in order to achieve the work they set out to do, it is essential to persevere through challenges. The gender committee believes its efforts can be sustained through continuous dialogue with staff and community about gender related issues and by attending forums like the Gender Summit to hear about best practices from other councils. The committee’s work can be cascaded through sharing information with other councils at forums and through meetings.Click here to read more about the Lobatse Town Council.