Tag Archives: Sexuality Education

AMA, Health

Newly released 2025 scorecard unveils progress and setbacks on health and gender equality across Southern Africa

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Geneva, Switzerland, 26 February 2026- /African Media Agency (AMA)/- The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has launched its biennial scorecard, a critical tool that tracks progress on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) across its 16 Member States. New data, including from demographic health surveys, shows great strides in improving the sexual and reproductive health of people across the region, while in other areas, concerted efforts are urgently needed.

The SADC scorecard offers a regional snapshot of progress towards the implementation of the SADC SRHR Strategy and SRHR targets of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on health and gender equality. First developed in 2019, the scorecard serves as a social accountability tool and uses a “traffic light” system to track 20 indicators.

The scorecard highlights improvements in reducing adolescent birth rates and the vertical transmission of HIV, while sounding the alarm on a rise in sexually transmitted infections and the need for investments to further reduce maternal mortality:

Lowered Adolescent Birth Rates: Twelve Member States recorded a decline in adolescent births, which can be attributed to the high roll-out of life-skills HIV and comprehensive sexuality education in primary schools.

Decline in HIV infection rates: The region has seen a decline in new HIV infections, however, the latest scorecard suggests that the rate of reduction in new HIV infections amongst adolescent girls and young women aged 15 – 24 years is slowing in seven countries. This could be partially linked to a rise in sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in half of the countries and a decline in condom use in a majority of countries.

Reduction in Maternal Mortality: Six countries recorded significant reductions in maternal mortality, based on their latest national health data. This can be attributed to the priority given by the region to reduce maternal mortality, which needs to be sustained in order to preserve the gains made.

Strong progress in the decrease in the vertical transmission of HIV: Twelve Member States are on track to meet the SDG target by 2030, five of whom already achieved the milestone in 2025. Despite this success, children and adolescent girls and young women are lagging behind in receiving HIV services.

In addition to the abovementioned gains, the scorecard also identified areas where concerted efforts are needed:

Family Planning: Eight Member States are not meeting the contraceptive needs of women. Investing in the contraceptive needs of women and adolescent girls can further reduce teen pregnancies and preventable maternal deaths, and ensure their contribution to their country’s economic growth and development.

Gender-Based Violence: Sexual and intimate partner violence remains persistently high across all Member States in the SADC region. Though all countries have made progress in putting in place relevant laws and policies, greater investments are required to ensure their implementation, including the integration of SRHR, HIV and GBV services, so that all survivors are able to ensure their health and well-being.

Domestic financing: No SADC country has met the ‘Abuja Declaration’ target of allocating 15% of their national budgets to health. Four countries have allocated more than 10% of their national budget to health. Countries need to accelerate domestic funding given declining donor investments if progress is to be made in achieving Universal Health Coverage, and to reduce out of pocket expenditures for citizens.

“The true power of this 3rd Milestone Scorecard lies not merely in what it measures, but in the action it demands from us. With only five years to 2030, we must move with urgency, we need to accelerate implementation, scaling what works, and we need to support our commitments with bold, measurable, and accountable actions,” said Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health, Republic of South Africa.

“Investing in sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is no longer just a public health issue; it is a fundamental economic imperative. Research has shown us that every dollar invested in family planning, particularly among the youthful population, can yield up to $100 in long-term economic benefits, yet our chronic underfunding and reliance on external aid actively sacrifices our demographic dividend. Political leadership must translate into urgent, domestic financial mobilization that meets the 15% Abuja target. Our greatest challenge is the paralysis between policy commitment and real-world execution. The SADC scorecard and mid-term review of the SADC SRHR strategy reinforces that Member States need to reform restrictive national laws, enforce gender-based violence and child marriage legislation, and fully integrate SRHR into climate adaptation plans to build truly resilient, rights-based health systems,” reaffirms H.E. Mr. Elias Mpedi Magosi, Executive Secretary of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

Since 2018, the joint United Nations Regional Programme, 2gether 4 SRHR, composed of UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO, has supported SADC to develop, implement and monitor the SADC SRHR strategy and its scorecard, with funding from the Government of Sweden.

“The leadership of the SADC Ministers of Health and the Secretariat, guided by the SADC SRHR Strategy, is demonstrating tangible results: reduced adolescent birth rates, fewer maternal deaths, and decreased rates of HIV. These must be celebrated and safeguarded. However, the 2025 scorecard is a stark reminder that these gains are fragile. Without continued commitment and increased domestic investments, these gains risk being undone. As a long standing partner to SADC, the 2gether 4 SRHR programme remains committed to using the scorecard findings and working with Governments in areas where the region and countries are lagging behind.

Collectively, we must do better to ensure that all people can exercise their sexual and reproductive health and rights and that young people can achieve their full potential, so that everyone can contribute to the economic and social development of the region,” highlights Lydia Zigomo, UNFPA Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, on behalf of the Regional Directors of the 2gether 4 SRHR programme.

“Despite our successes, we now risk a two-speed region where gaps in family planning, HIV prevention, and gender equality strand 94 million adolescents without the wellbeing they need to drive the economic and social development of SADC. To avoid this, all Member States must invest urgently and in sustained ways in adolescent SRHR as a foundation for all SRHR,” concludes Jonathan Gunthorp, Executive Director, SRHR Africa Trust.

Distributed by African Media Agency (AMA) on behalf of World Health Organisation.

Notes to editors:

The SADC scorecard is published every two years and tracks 20 indicators across SADC Member States, including information on rates of maternal and neonatal mortality, adolescent birth rates, family planning, HIV infections and treatment, STIs, including HPV, number of health facilities offering SRHR services and schools offering sexuality education, as well as number of health workers and budget allocated to health. The scorecard also tracks key legal issues which impact on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Milestones were set for 2025 and the scorecard’s traffic light system indicates green for progress and red for regression, against a baseline set in 2019.

Explore the scorecard

The SADC SRHR Strategy (2019 – 2030) serves as a policy and programmatic framework for Member States to ensure that all people in SADC enjoy a healthy sexual and reproductive life, have sustainable access, coverage, and quality SRHR services, information, and education; and can fully realize and exercise their SRHR. The 16 Member States in SADC include: Angola, Botswana, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Seychelles, South Africa, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

About 2gether 4 SRHR:

2gether 4 SRHR is a joint United Nations Regional Programme, in partnership with Sweden, which brings together the combined efforts of UNAIDS, UNFPA, UNICEF and WHO to improve the sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR) of all people in Eastern and Southern Africa. For more information and for a one-stop-shop of information and resources in Africa, visit the SRHR Knowledge Hub.

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Health, Opinion

My Take On It: Sexuality education will sexualize, not protect your children

Janet Karim
Sexuality education

“And anyone who welcomes a little child like this on my behalf is welcoming me. But if you cause one of these little ones who trusts in me to fall into sin, it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.” — Matthew 18:5-6

It was always a delight when studying history, to learn about the age regiments set up by my tribal ancestral leader Shaka the Zulu king. History classes were replete with how these prepared young boys and girls for the diverse roles they would grow to play among them hunting and protection of the tribe for boys, and house chores and marriage for girls. In a sense, they were similar to the western formal school system. The dawn of colonialism threw in the bin the systems, bringing in western forms of education. Lately that supplanting of the local traditional education systems, has ushered in a coterie of norms and practices such as comprehensive sexuality education.

Right on schedule for many schoolchildren in many classrooms this year, will not only be reading, writing, and arithmetic but also masturbation, anal sex, oral sex, abortion, gender change, sexual rights, and sexual pleasure, reports Family Watch International (FWI). The push for comprehensive sexuality education, known as CSE, is being pushed by western countries, including the European Union and the United Nations.

Some people think that “sex education” just means teaching about human reproduction. And many may assume that “comprehensive” sex education just means including information on how condoms and contraception can reduce (but not eliminate!) the risks of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or pregnancy. But FWI reports that today’s “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” involves much, much more—and it’s getting worse by the year!”

In fact, the International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education, published by UNESCO in 2018, says explicitly, that “CSE goes beyond education about reproduction, risks, and disease.” A Framework for Comprehensive Sexuality Education, published by International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), says the same thing—that CSE “is concerned with more than just the prevention of disease or pregnancy.”

What is the “more” they are talking about? How far “beyond … risks and disease” do they want to go? Family Watch has documented 15 harmful effects of CSE on children, and the very first harm on the list is that CSE sexualizes children. The IPPF Framework says that CSE “recognizes and accepts all people as sexual beings.” The UNESCO Guidance says, “Sexuality is present throughout life.”

Please understand, “all people” includes children! And “throughout life” means from birth!

UNESCO says that CSE “promotes … the rights of children and young people” and says, “CSE promotes the right to choose when and with whom a person will have any form of intimate or sexual relationship.” That means CSE teaches that YOUR child has the “human right” to have sex WHENEVER he or she chooses to—at ANY age!

In fact, this “rights-based” approach is a key element in virtually every definition of “Comprehensive Sexuality Education” today. Ironically, while UNFPA, UNESCO, and allies are promoting their “rights” in CSE, they are trampling, crushing, and walking all over the rights of parents everywhere. FWI states that the CSE programs are often designed to actively prevent parents from exercising their parental rights to guide the physical, emotional, and moral upbringing of their own children. In the developing world, multilateral organizations  such as the European Union, are attempting to link the provision of CSE to development aid.

Disturbingly, these programs may teach students how to:

  • Challenge their parents’ traditional values or religious beliefs; and
  • access services such as contraception, abortion, or “gender transition” hormones without parental knowledge or consent.

CSE programs often include other content that is explicit and not age-appropriate. This may include lessons on oral sex, and anal sex. Masturbation, sexual pleasure, and homosexuality.

Fortunately, with FWI and a group of concerned citizens from the Caribbean, Africa, and the Pacific countries, it is possible to fight the radical sexual agenda of CSE—and WIN!

Members of the local congress, church, and youth groups need to move for their elected leaders to say NO to the EU and other western countries that are pushing for CSE to enter the classrooms. The EU must be demanded to remove all language that is an intrusion into the laws of the PAC countries. Push back. Hard.

It is possible to defeat the advocates of CSE. They are relentless, and they are everywhere! Protecting children requires constant vigilance.

Malawians must take immediate action to protect children, make a difference, and take the following action steps:

  1. Find out what sex education programs are being implemented in the country, state, and community
  2. Find out what is being taught in your children’s schools—demand to see a copy of any sex education curriculum.
  3. As parents and elected officials, expose the CSE programs you find and invite parents and religious leaders to join the campaign against CSE.
  4. Share our documentary, “The War on Children: The Comprehensive Sexuality Education Agenda,” found online at https://www.comprehensivesexualityeducation.org/waronchildren/.
  5. Demand that the United Nations, governments, and schools everywhere immediately stop promoting and funding harmful Comprehensive Sexuality Education.

For more information on the fight against CSE, contact fwi@familywatch.org.

Nothing can stop a group of engaged parents determined to protect their children. Please do all that you can to uncover, expose and remove the harmful CSE programs where you live.

Together we can and will protect the world’s children!

Human Rights

Malawi: Teen Pregnancy Surge Triggers Calls for Review on Sexuality Education

Maravi Post Reporter
Teenage pregnancies and marriages on the rise in Malawi due to Covid-19 pandemic

A recent spike in the national caseload of teenage pregnancies in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is exposing gaps on the impact of Life Skills education in primary schools.

This is according to Chairperson for the Malawi Sexual Reproductive Health Rights – SRHR Alliance Donald Makwakwa.

During a recent national stakeholder meeting in Dowa, the Alliance noted cultural beliefs which deem education on sexuality a taboo and less detailed content in textbooks as some of the identified gaps.

A random spot check in Salima and Nkhotakota districts has established that early marriages and pregnancies have failed up to sixty girls from sitting for the on – going Primary School Leaving Certificate examinations. 

“We believe that this is the time we have to review the Life Skills education curriculum to ensure it fits into the comprehensive sexuality education expectations,” argued Makwakwa.

The meeting was part of a study to assess the impact of Life Skills education on the sexual reproductive lives of learners in Ntchisi, Chitipa and Mangochi districts.

Recent records in Mangochi indicate that the lake shore district has registered over 7000 teen pregnancies. The number is 1000 higher compared to those recorded during a similar period last year.

The SRHR Alliance is implementing the project in partnership with Amref, one of Africa’s  leading Medical and Research Foundation.

A Taskforce has since been instituted for further engagement on the need to review the teaching of Life Skills education in schools.

Source: MBC