CAPE TOWN, South Africa, July 2 (NewsDay Live) - A Sadc regional seminar on children’s rights and climate change got underway in Cape Town this morning with the deputy speaker of the Parliament of Botswana, Helen Manyeneng, challenging the region’s parliamentarians to reimagine climate governance through the eyes of the region’s most vulnerable - its children.
Speaking at the opening of the seminar which ends Thursday, Manyeneng, a member of the Sadc Parliamentary Forum, warned that “the storm is already upon us” and children are bearing the brunt.
“We meet here not out of routine,” she told delegates gathered at the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape, and added, “We gather because the impact of climate change is neither abstract nor remote. It is immediate, it is devastating, and it is disproportionately borne by the most vulnerable among us, our children.”
Held under the theme, “Championing Collective Child-Responsive Climate Action,” the three-day seminar brings together researchers under the Sadc PF/Sweden-funded SRHR, HIV and Aids Governance Project researchers, parliamentarians, civil society actors, academics, and climate justice advocates to align regional strategies on child-sensitive climate governance.
Manyeneng highlighted the regional toll of climate change including cyclone Freddy’s devastation in Malawi, drought-induced food insecurity in Angola and Zimbabwe, and the destruction of over 6 000 classrooms in Madagascar.
She warned that such events are not isolated disasters but systemic assaults on children’s rights to health, education, protection, and even life itself.
“Let me be abundantly clear, climate change is a children’s rights crisis,” she declared.
The Botswana deputy speaker criticised existing regional and national climate frameworks for continuing to overlook the distinct and urgent needs of children.
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“This must change,” she said.
Citing the draft Sadc Protocol on Children, especially Article 37 which outlines climate protections for children, Manyeneng said the legal framework exists but needs political will and concrete action.
“Protocols are only as powerful as the political will behind them.”
Manyeneng appealed to national parliaments across Sadc to use their constitutional mandates to integrate children’s rights into all climate-related laws, National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
“Let us enshrine in our laws the right of every child to grow up in a healthy, safe, and sustainable environment,” she urged.
She added, “Let us ensure that the voices of children - often spoken about but rarely spoken with - are central to decision-making processes on climate policy.”
The seminar focuses on practical solutions such as just energy transitions, climate financing, loss and damage, and legal innovations.
Manyeneng stressed that civil society and parliamentary collaboration would be vital.
“Legislation is where intention becomes obligation,” she said.
The deputy speaker commended the Dullah Omar Institute and other conveners for organising what she called a “timely and visionary initiative.”
“Let this be the moment where the Sadc region boldly declares, our climate agenda will not ignore our children,” she said.
She continued, “Let this be the moment where we rise as a regional bloc, not just to adapt, but to protect, to empower, and to secure the promise of tomorrow through the actions of today.”
The regional seminar continues until July 4.
- Moses Magadza is the media and communications manager at the Sadc Parliamentary Forum.
