Moses Magadza in Cape Town

A SADC regional seminar on the impacts of climate change on children, began on 2 July 2025 here, with Professor Benyam Dawit Mezmur, the Deputy Dean of the Postgraduate Studies and Head of the  Children’s Rights Project from the University of the Western Cape (UWC) urging participants to confront the deep inequities and blind spots in climate action, and to imagine a continent “fit for children.”

Welcoming delegates to the University’s School of Public Health on behalf of the Dean, Professor Jacques de Ville, Prof Mezmur paid tribute to the Dullah Omar Institute, co-host of the seminar. He highlighted its legacy as a cradle of post-apartheid leadership and justice.

“The name Dullah Omar comes with a lot of responsibilities,” he said, adding that the name came from the late human rights lawyer and former Minister of Justice in democratic South Africa, who once served, also, as the late President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s lawyer.

Prof Mezmur extended a special welcome to the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Botswana and a member of the SADC Parliamentary Forum, Hon. Helen Manyeneng, who delivered a keynote address and has been actively participating in discussions. He highlighted the importance of political leadership in children’s rights work.

“I can confidently say that the children’s rights space is served better with more politicians and parliamentarians getting involved,” he said.

He hailed the seminar’s diverse participation, and said that what united the delegates was “the love we have for the continent of Africa” and a shared ambition “to create an Africa that is fit for children; safer than the one we were handed by our parents.”

Turning to global politics and climate action, Prof Mezmur cited a recent article co-authored by Kenyan President William Ruto and published in The Guardian newspaper of South Africa.

He said, “A few months ago, President Ruto co-wrote an opinion piece for the Guardian. It said in part, ‘Among the many shocks currently facing the international development community is the new direction of the US administration on climate, and the implications worldwide for mitigation and adaptation efforts…This is not uncharted territory.

While a withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement is undoubtedly a setback, it no longer carries the same level of disruption as it did. The global community has become more resilient and will continue to advance climate action.’ I hope this is true. I hope this is true for the entire world, for the continent, and I hope it is for the SADC region.”

In that article, President Ruto warned that international development efforts are increasingly being shaped and, in some cases, jeopardised by shifting U.S. foreign policy priorities, particularly in the wake of dramatic aid cuts and retreat from multilateralism.

While acknowledging that regional literature points to attempts at addressing climate change through subregional mechanisms, Prof Mezmur warned that climate change is a global challenge requiring synergised efforts.

He encouraged delegates to engage critically with the seminar’s programme, which attempts to move beyond the view of children as a homogeneous group.

“Climate change affects children differently,” he said, and warned against the temptation to see children as a monolith.

Prof Mezmur shared an anecdote from his two decades living in Cape Town. Recalling the city’s near-catastrophic water crisis, dubbed “Day Zero,” he described how water restrictions were prepared for the day when dam levels would fall below 10 percent.

Yet amid the panic and billion-dollar public campaigns, he noted, people in informal settlements had lived without running water for years. But it was never called a crisis – until it reached the middle class.

That inequality, he warned, remains a blind spot in many climate policies and responses.

“As we begin our conversations today,” Prof Mezmur said, “let us think about the discrimination, the inequality, the so-called blind spots that affect those on the margins of society.”

The three-day seminar brings together parliamentarians, civil society actors, academics, SADC PF SRHR, HIV and AIDS Governance Project researchers, and the Secretariat of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.

Under the auspices of the African Children’s Charter Project, the seminar is running under the theme, “Championing Collective Child-Responsive Climate Action.”

Discussions will focus on how to tailor climate responses to meet the distinct needs of children while amplifying their voices in policy processes.

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