By Moses Magadza

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA – A high-level capacity-building workshop on Strengthening Parliamentary Evidence-Based Policy Making by Integrating the Nexus between Climate Change, Health, and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in underway in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Convened by the Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the activity brings together participants from across the region to explore the critical linkages between climate change and SRHR.

Mr Munashe Tofa is the Program Manager – Climate Change, Environment, Health/SRHR at the SADC PF. He said the workshop comes at a time when climate change has emerged as the defining crisis of the current generation, with profound and disproportionate impacts on human health and well-being.

He pointed to evidence showing that climate shocks disrupt access to lifesaving SRH services, increase gender-based violence, and worsen maternal and child health outcomes.

Conversely, investments in SRHR, such as access to family planning and women’s education, have been recognised as key resilience and adaptation strategies.

Mr Tofa said national parliaments often face capacity gaps in interrogating these linkages, particularly in scrutinising climate finance flows to ensure they are gender-responsive and inclusive.

Reports submitted by national parliaments under the Sweden-funded SRHR, HIV and AIDS Governance Project (2024–2026) highlighted weaknesses in analysing climate-SRHR interlinkages, identifying entry points for policy integration, and monitoring budgets and international financing mechanisms such as the Green Climate Fund.

The workshop’s overarching aim is to strengthen the ability of SRHR researchers and Directors of Research Departments to generate and use evidence that informs gender-responsive, SRHR-sensitive climate legislation and financing decisions.

Specifically, participants are expected to articulate how climate change directly and indirectly affects health, with a focus on SRHR; identify relevant climate policies and financing mechanisms at national and international levels; apply a gender and SRHR lens to analyse climate policies and funding proposals; and develop actionable, evidence-based recommendations for parliamentarians.

The workshop has drawn 22 participants from 11 implementing countries under the Sweden-funded SRHR HIV and AIDS and Governance Project. Each participating parliament nominated one Director of the Research Department and one SRHR researcher.

Using a participatory methodology, participants are engaging with case studies from their own countries, including recent climate-related disasters such as floods or droughts, to assess their impacts on health systems and SRHR outcomes.

Additionally, they are interrogating national climate policies and financing mechanisms through a gender and SRHR lens.

Expectations are that a cohort of empowered SRHR researchers and Directors of Research Departments will emerge from the workshop with enhanced analytical skills on the climate-health-SRHR nexus.

Parliamentary research departments will increase production of briefs and policy analyses that integrate climate and SRHR considerations while Parliaments will be better positioned to hold governments accountable, strengthen debate on climate financing, and advance legislation that is equitable, gender-responsive and effective.