Sweden hails SADC PF as “excellent vehicle” foradvancing SRHR within the region

MOSES MAGADZA

WINDHOEK – Sweden has described the SADC Parliamentary
Forum as a trusted regional partner and an effective channel for
advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and
has praised its work to equip parliamentarians to hold
governments accountable.

Speaking after a courtesy call on SADC PF Secretary General,
Boemo Sekgoma, in Namibia recently, Johan Frisell, Director
for Africa and Deputy Director-General, Ministry for Foreign
Affairs of Sweden, said the Forum had been “a great partner to
Sweden for many years.”

During the courtesy call, Frisell and Sekgoma discussed the
value of Sweden’s funding, and the operating context of the
SADC PF. Sweden is supporting the Forum’s SRHR, HIV and
Aids Governance Project.

Frisell said parliamentary engagement helps build regional
ownership of shared goals and strengthens results. Parliaments,
he noted, have two fundamental responsibilities of passing laws
and approving annual budgets. Through these roles, they can
establish the legal basis for rights and fund the services needed
to uphold them.

“Parliaments are indispensable in the provision of both services
and upholding the rights,” he said. He added that Southern
African parliaments have a particularly “forward-leaning role” in
Africa, working alongside executives and courts to protect rights
and services.

Asked about the organised anti-rights push, Frisell urged
parliaments to defend gains already secured in national laws. He
said these achievements had been enshrined by African
parliaments over the past two or three decades, and that each
country must consider how to respond to what he described as
new pressures from outside.

“We believe that the rights agenda is indigenous to the African
countries,” he said. “We have high hopes that parliaments and
governments will resist these influences.”

Frisell also warned that dwindling overseas development funding
for health was placing added pressure on governments.
Parliaments and governments, he said, would need to decide
how to mobilise domestic resources to fill gaps where donor
funding had previously supported services.

“That is the ultimate proof whether there is national ownership
over the health agenda including sexual and reproductive health
and rights,” he said. He acknowledged that financing services
and protecting rights would be “a tall order,” but described it as
an important step towards countries taking full responsibility for
the agenda.

Frisell primarily praised SADC PF’s contribution to SRHR and
highlighted its progressive legislation in support of human rights
and its working group, which brings parliamentarians together
and provides tools to hold governments accountable for their
commitments.

“That is exactly what parliaments are there for,” he said.
Parliamentary cooperation, he added, can “inspire, train and
prepare parliaments to perform the functions that they are
meant to do.”

Moses Magadza is the Media and Communications Manager at the
SADC Parliamentary Forum.