By Cecilia Russell
Johannesburg, Sep 29 2022 – Child marriage continues to be a scourge in many African countries – despite legislation and efforts of many, including parliamentarians, to keep girls in school and create brighter futures for them. This was the view of participants in a recent webinar held under the auspices of the African Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development (FPA) and UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO).

The webinar, supported by the Asian Population and Development Association (APDA) and the Japan Trust Fund, heard how progressive legislation prohibiting marriage for adolescents under 18, and in one case, 21, was not enough to stop the practice.

Dr Kiyoko Ikegami, Executive Director, and Secretary General, APDA, noted in her opening address that the COVID-19 pandemic had affected child marriage prevention programmes and increased poverty and inequality, which was a driving force in child marriages.

Chinwe Ogbonna, UNFPA ESARO Regional Director a.i, said while there had been considerable achievements since the 1994 ICPD conference in Egypt – the work was not yet done.

She encouraged the parliamentarians to commit themselves to actions they agreed to at a regional meeting in Addis Ababa in June, which included “amplifying evidence-based advocacy.” In Africa, she said, teenage pregnancy and HIV prevalence are high. Gender-based violence was on the rise, and femicide and the harmful practices of child marriage, and female genital mutilation continued.

The webinar heard from members of parliament in various countries across the African continent.

Fredrick Outa, from Kenya, FPA Vice-President, told the delegates that while Kenya had made ambitious commitments, FGM was an area of concern. Kenya was committed to strengthening coordination in legislation and policy framework, communication and advocacy, integration and support, and cross-border cooperation to eliminate FGM.

Kenya aimed to eliminate GBV and child and forced marriages by “addressing social and cultural norms that propagate the practice while providing support to affected women and girls.”

An MP from Zambia, Princess Kasune, said it was of concern that the Zambia Demographic and Health Survey (ZDHS) of 2018 indicated that 29 percent of women aged 20-24 reported being married before 18. The country had various programmes to address this, including partnering with traditional rulers and civil society to fight early child marriage.

“Chiefs and headmen have made commitments in the fight against child marriage …. Traditional rulers are themselves champions in the fight against child marriage,” Kasune said.

She said the practice continues even though the Marriage Act prescribes 21 as the minimum age for marriage.

However, customary law differed, and there needed to be consistency in legislation.

The other crucial campaign against early marriages was to keep children in school. While the government had employed 30 000 teachers in rural areas, more was needed.

“Keeping children in school was critical to lowering the incidence of child marriage,” Kasune said.

Muwuma Milton, MP Uganda, agreed that culture played a part in eliminating harmful practices like child marriage. The country was applying a multifaceted approach to eliminating this – including school feeding schemes, providing sanitary packs for girls, and encouraging young mothers to return to school after delivery.

“A challenge is that the country has unmet needs for family planning services, which stands at 30%, and there is a culture that believes that once a girl reaches menstruation age, they are old enough to get married,” Milton said.

Matthew Ngwale, an MP from Malawi, noted that his country adhered to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol that condemns the marriage of people under 18. The Malawian constitution, Marriage, Divorce, the Family Relations Act (2015), and the Childcare Justice and Protection Act all reinforce this policy.

But, Ngwale said, despite “progressive legislation, Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the world, where approximately 42% of girls get married before the age of 18, and 9% are below the age of 15. Approximately 7% of boys marry before the age of 18.”

He also noted that child marriage is higher in rural than urban areas. Rural girls are 1.6 times more likely to marry early than their urban counterparts.

Poverty is a clear driver, with women in the predominantly ‘poor’ south marrying at a slightly lower age than those in the ‘wealthier’ north and central regions.

“In Malawi, children from more impoverished families are twice as likely to marry early than those from wealthier families,” Ngwale said, and in a country where data shows that 51.5% of the people live below the poverty line, which is higher in rural areas at 60% compared to urban areas at 18%.

Traditional initiation practices, done as part of a rite of passage when a girl reaches puberty, encouraged early sexual activity, Ngwale said, and the prevalence of child marriage is higher among matrilineal than patrilineal groups.

“Due to food insecurity, child marriage often becomes a more likely coping mechanism as families seek to reduce the burden of feeding the family,” he said.

Climatic challenges, such as droughts and floods, have become more frequent and catastrophic.

Child marriage impacts secondary school completion rates. In Malawi, only 45% of girls stay in school beyond 8th grade.

“Most young girls who leave school due to child marriage have few opportunities to earn a living, making them more vulnerable to GBV. Child marriage lowers women’s expected earnings in adulthood by between 1.4% and 15.6%,” he said.

However, the Malawi government had created a conducive environment for civil society organizations to work with the government to end child marriage – including the official Girls Not Brides National Partnership.

Pamela Majodina, MP Republic of South Africa, told the webinar the country was committed to the objectives of ICPD25. It has passed laws, including the Domestic Violence Act, Children’s Act, Sexual Offences Act, and Child Justice Act, where it is a criminal offense to have sex with a child under 16 – regardless of consent.

Goodlucky Kwaramba, MP Zimbabwe, said her country was committed to reducing teenage pregnancies from 21.6% to 12% by 2030 and delivering comprehensive Family Planning services by 2030.

An MP from Eswatini, Sylvia Mthethwa, said her country, with 73 percent of the population below 35 and youth unemployment at 47 percent, was committed to ensuring that youth was front of mind. While senators were mobilizing financial resources, the National Youth Policy and National Youth Operational Plan had been developed.

Meanwhile, in Tanzania, some successes were already recorded Dr Thea Ntara, MP Tanzania, said rural areas were fully supported in the rollout of free ARVs, and adolescent and youth-friendly SRH services have been available in more than 63% of all health facilities since 2017.

Note: The webinar series is based on a recommendation of the African and Asian Parliamentarians’ meeting to Follow-Up on ICPD25 Commitments held in June 2022 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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By Gina Ziervogel
CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Sep 29 2022 – Equity and justice feature prominently in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 6th (IPCC) Assessment Report Working Group II, published in 2022. The report focuses on the impacts of climate change, as well as vulnerability and adaptation.

In its summary for policymakers, the report states: “Inclusive governance that prioritizes equity and justice in adaptation planning and implementation leads to more effective and sustainable adaptation outcomes (high confidence).” This is a welcome, albeit long overdue development.

The report offers widespread evidence in support of a focus on justice across different sectors and regions. It reflects rapidly mounting concern for climate justice — in both advocacy circles and in the public discourse — and a sharp increase in the volume of information on this topic.

Arguments concerning climate justice include the need to address historical inequities, contest established power, and consider diverse perspectives and needs in planning and delivery. Only by confronting these issues directly can we deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and climate goals.

Gina Ziervogel

Africa’s cities need to respond better

As outlined in the Africa chapter of the IPCC, Africa is highly vulnerable to climate risk. The continent features strongly in discussions on equity and justice, which argue for low carbon development without interfering with the economic growth.

With their concentration of people and growth, African cities are particularly important places to focus climate action. They have been slow to develop adaptation and mitigation policies and practice, but there are ample lessons worldwide and within the continent from which to draw motivation.

Organisations such as 350.org and Climate Justice Alliance, are fighting for equity and justice locally and internationally. We can glean approaches by studying and understanding these efforts, but we need to make them locally relevant.

Across the globe, cities are rapidly integrating climate action in their plans to reduce emissions and the impacts of hazards, such as droughts, floods, fires and heatwaves.

A few African cities have made progress by building justice and equity into climate response programs. Kampala is converting organic waste into briquettes for cooking. This provides an alternative livelihood strategy, reduces the number of trees cut for charcoal, and decreases the amount of waste going to landfill.

In response to neighbourhood flood risk, residents in Nairobi have invested in reducing their exposure. In addition, they have mobilized youth groups to disseminate environmental information and engage in activities such as tree planting to stabilize riverbanks.

Some local governments are ramping up their climate change management efforts. Yet, city government responses are often sector-specific and can’t succeed by themselves — the challenge is too massive and urgent.

More projects and programmes are needed that use a collaborative or co-productive approach for meeting equity and justice goals. We must have innovative ways of bringing in different sectors and actors— to really hear their perspectives and explore potential solutions. Such an approach might require safe space for experimentation.

In addition, we have to develop methods for scaling urban solutions that ensure adaptation responses meet the needs of the most at-risk groups across cities and institutionalize strategies in city planning and implementation.

Epistemic justice

Epistemic justice refers to the extent to which different people’s knowledge is recognized. Scientific evidence abounds that solving complex problems benefits from multiple types of knowledge bases. Yet city governments provide little opportunity to integrate diverse viewpoints.

In the context of inequality, ensuring that the voices of marginalized and at-risk people are included is crucial for generating appropriate locally owned solutions.

The FRACTAL project (Future Resilience for African Cities and Lands) engaged a trans-disciplinary group of researchers, officials and practitioners that worked across six cities in southern Africa between 2015 and 2021.

FRACTAL exemplifies how city stakeholders and researchers can co-produce knowledge around climate impacts and potential adaptation responses in cities such as Lusaka, Maputo, and Windhoek.

Although climate science was an important part of the project, the initial stages provided time and space for participants to share “burning questions” in their cities and collaboratively decide how to address these.

Some cities developed climate risk narratives to guide future decisions. Others developed climate change planning documents and platforms that thought about adaptation projects through a holistic lens. Importantly, participants, built trust and capacity, for city actors to take this work forward collaboratively.

When prioritizing adaptation actions at the city level, local governments have tended to use criteria based on their frameworks and data, providing just one perspective. However, more bottom-up data is required to meet the needs of those most at risk.

Arguments concerning climate justice include the need to address historical inequities, contest established power, and consider diverse perspectives and needs in planning and delivery. Only by confronting these issues directly can we deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals and climate goals.

Such data can better capture challenges that citizens face, such as accessing water during droughts or recovering from flooding that might have washed away homes and possessions.

A recent project in Cape Town sought to do this. Local activists from low-income neighborhoods collected data on issues around water services and explored diverse ways, including film, comics and maps as ways to share this information with other residents and city officials.

Collaborations between NGOs, researchers and local governments can strengthen the type of data available and contribute to more nuanced understanding.

The National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda, for instance, collected local data that informed planning and the development of solutions to reduce climate risk with sustainable building materials and improving water and sanitation services. This work positioned them to negotiate effectively with local government to support further efforts.

Across the globe, cities are rapidly integrating climate action in their plans to reduce emissions and the impacts of hazards, such as droughts, floods, fires, and heatwaves. They also are rapidly expanding opportunities to access climate funding.

The time has come for African cities to determine how they will engage in the climate action and justice space to ensure they meet the serious challenges they are confronting.

Gina Ziervogel is Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Geographical Science at the University of Cape Town.

Source: Africa Renewal, United Nations, September 2022

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