PRETORIA, South Africa (NNPA) - We must congratulate Rwanda for achieving 48.8 percent of women representation in parliament. This is the highest in the world. It means gender parity is no longer a dream but a reality in Africa, said Lulu Xingwana, South Africa's Deputy Minister of Minerals and Energy, to thunderous applause from over a thousand women who gathered recently in the capital, Pretoria. Although Rwanda's elections took place in October 2003, the results are still news to many South African women - particularly those from the remote parts of the country. It is exactly this delay in the flow of information between South Africa and the rest of the continent that organizers of the recent meeting hope to address. The conference, Women in Solidarity with the African Union for Democracy, Peace and Development, was held at the University of Pretoria under the auspices of the South African Women in Dialogue (SAWID) initiative. The Pretoria meeting was intended to also help South African women forge stronger relations with their counterparts elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. The (South African) Department of Foreign Affairs has given us 2 million rand (about $320,000) to dialogue with the civil society in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Sudan,said Zanele Mbeki, wife of President Thabo Mbeki, and convener of SAWID. South Africa is trying to broker a peace in Burundi where, according to the London-based human rights watchdog, Amnesty International, more than 300,000 people have been killed since 1993 in civil conflict. Discussions between SAWID and women from Sudan and Rwanda are also in the pipeline. The women want to know how South Africa handled the negotiations to dismantle the apartheid system and transition to democracy. They also want us to share with them how we managed to integrate our various forces into one army - and how we managed to collect all weapons from our fighters, Mbeki noted. These types of dialogue reveal the great value of creating further platforms for women to share their experiences and thereby facilitate the strengthening of women's participation in the management of peace and stability on our continent. Up to 350 million people, or half of Africa's population, live on less than one dollar a day. Life expectancy is 54 years, and only 58 percent have access to clean water, Thoko Mpumlwana, a SAWID organizer, told the gathering. It should be our agenda to work for peace and democracy in Africa. We should not sit comfortably (in South Africa) when there's war in Africa. The continent is also home to about 5 million refugees and more than 10 million internally displaced persons, according to a 2003 report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Most of these people are children and women. In addition, Africa faces a massive challenge in the form of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. By 2003, about 28 million (or 70 percent) of the almost 40 million people infected with HIV around the world were living in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). But South African women, who make up 52 percent of their country's population, believe they can make a difference - even in the face of these overwhelming odds. South Africa has a formidable powerhouse of women who can change the face of this country and - together with our sisters in the continent - can change the face of Africa for the better, Mbeki said. Four of the nine officials who head provincial governments in South Africa are women. Thirty-three percent of its legislators are women, 42 percent of cabinet posts are taken up by women - and 51 percent of deputy ministers are women, according to official statistics. Sue Van Merwe, South Africa's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, says the AU wants 50 percent of all its posts filled by women within the next few years. Never again should women in Africa find themselves on the periphery, she told the conference.