19 Mar 2026

Gender Links has been commended for entrenching itself and expanding its footprint as a ‘go-to’ regional and global gender equality organisation. 

Speaking during the 25 years anniversary celebration of the non-governmental gender movement in Tlokweng on Tuesday, former attorney general and ambassador, Dr Athalia Molokomme, highlighted that Gender Links’ many achievements included successfully lobbying for the adoption of the SADC Gender Protocol and through the regional alliance monitoring its implementation and that of other regional and global instruments. 

Dr Molokomme who serves as the interim chairperson of Gender Links Botswana board said the organisation had been a regular presence at SADC and African Union Heads of State Summits, the UN Commission on the Status of Women and other fora tracking progress towards gender equality. 

“The organisation has developed a modern governance structure at regional level, established affiliates in some SADC countries and conducted gender training and empowerment programmes in others beyond the region. Research conducted by Gender Links, statistical gender-disaggregated data and publications such as the Gender Barometers have become important sources of knowledge globally and have directly influenced policy,” said Dr Molokomme. 

She said despite progress in some areas many challenges remained in the social, political and economic spheres where deep inequalities between women and men persisted. 

Dr Molokomme said more still needed to be done and that the current uncertain geopolitical environment presented further challenges.  

A human rights lawyer, Dr Molokomme said Gender Links traced its roots to the end of the 1990s, following the 1995 UN Conference on Women held in Beijing, China. 

“I had temporarily taken off my academic hat to establish an institutional base for Emang Basadi, a human rights organisation we had started in the mid-1980s in Botswana. I found myself among a coalition of activists determined to “bring Beijing back home” to SADC. This group successfully lobbied for the adoption of the Beijing Declaration and the introduction of a policy and institutional framework for gender issues in SADC,” she added. 

Gender Links Botswana country director, Ms Keabonye Ntsabane, said the organisation focused on cooperation with other partners in Botswana, lobbying and advocating for the SADC gender protocol and development. 

She said the Beijing platform for action had main focus on critical issues of concern in Botswana including among others education and training, women in decision making and power sharing. 

Ms Ntsabane said the SADC gender protocol was translated into Setswana thus making it easy to disseminate to rural areas and the communities were mobilised and sensitised on GBV which resulted in Gender Links produced I Stories. 

She noted that the media was also trained on gender related issues and reporting which resulted in some media houses having media policy in their newsrooms. 

In their solidarity message Botswana Association on Local Authorities (BALA) executive secretary, Mr Steve Pheko, said over the years, Gender Links had played a critical role in the development of women in the local government space. 

The organisation established interventions against social ills especially GBV which were implemented at council level and that alone empowered a lot of women locally. 

Mr Pheko said the BALA secretariat was established in 2008 and grew its structures including the establishment of the women’s commission which was later rebranded the gender commission through the assistance of Gender Links Botswana. ENDS