SAfAIDS Transforming Lives

The following results have been taken from the End-term Review and final narrative report for 2018-2023. - A total of 1,165 policy-makers from Ministries of Gender/Womens Affairs, Health, Education, Justice and Youth from 16 Member States were engaged in regional and national policy advocacy actions relating to a harmonised sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) response for adolescents and young people in SADC, with 12 of 16 SADC Member States validating SADC Sexual Gender-based Violence (SGBV) Response Guidelines. Furthermore, the programme has succeeded in directly sensitising Parliamentarians on issues of SGBV, safe abortion, early and unintended pregnancies and access to contraceptives. - 72% of policy-makers reached by SAfAIDS committed to champion climate action and gender equality in their policy decisions on SGBV and national gender frameworks following training on incorporating climate action into Early and Unintended Pregnancy prevention. - Evidence of increased regional sectoral policy development and dialogue among political, religious, traditional, health and justice leaders on early and unintended pregnancies and safe abortion issues with a key result being the development of a Harmonised Regional Roadmap to Prevent Unsafe Abortion and Early and Unintended Pregnancy (EUP) among adolescent girls and young women. - The Regional My Choice, Our Choice Campaign to end unsafe abortions among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) reached 1,308,289 individuals, both duty bearers and rights holders, in the SADC regionwith safe abortion knowledge, tools and products which contributed to decreased policy-maker resistance to safe abortion and an increased number of policy-makers speaking-out on removing restrictive policies. This also contributed to parliamentarians recommending a SADC Safe Abortion Model Law be developed. In 8 of 16 SADC Member States, policy-makers and leaders advocated for review of abortion-related legislation, resulting in positive shifts in legal environments. - A Regional Coalition of Allies and Champions on Safe Abortion with 18 regional policy-makers, traditional and religious leaders was also created which contributed to reduced resistance in member states to safe abortion and prevention of early and unintended pregnancies. - A total of 127,207 adolescents and young people aged 10-24 years were reached with SRHR and Social Accountability Monitoring (SAM) information, skills and tools, through the SAM4SRHR model and MobiSAfAIDS app, in 12 sites in 6 countries. 30,962 of the targeted 39,059 adolescents and young people were registered on the app with 80% of the registered users actively using SAM in advocating duty-bearers to lift barriers to accessing SRH services. Service providers responsiveness to addressing SRH service barriers increased from 30% to 92% as a result. There was also evidence that different countries began to scale-up use of the app in different national health programmes. Of the 130 policy-makers from the 6 countries where 12 SAM4SRHR Sites are established who were trained in Public Resource Management (PRM), 87% committed to using the new skills to work for better SRH services for young people. - Through regional assessments and policy briefs there was an increase in the regional body of knowledge on SGBV, safe abortion and early and unintended pregnancies. The programme created Communities of Practice which created interfaces between policy makers, leaders, young people, CSOs and development partners.

Transforming Lives is a 4.5 year regional policy and advocacy programme (2018-2023), which seeks to contribute towards a more conducive policy environment that enables positive SRHR outcomes among adolescents and young people in Southern Africa. The programme seeks to work at the regional level to influence policy in three thematic SRHR spheres of sexual gender-based violence, adolescent pregnancy and unsafe abortion with links to maternal mortality and access to youth friendly SRHR information and services. The programme will contribute directly to SDG 3 on Good Health and Well-being and SDG 5 on Gender Equality, and make linkages to targets under SDGs 10 and 16. The programme goal is to contribute towards a more conducive policy environment that enables positive SRHR outcomes among adolescents and young women in Southern Africa. The Programmes Strategic Objectives (SOs) are: Strategic Objective 1 (SO1): Support the development of SADC Sexual Gender-based Violence Response Guidelines for Adolescents and Young People by Member States, by 2023. Strategic Objective 2 (SO2): Advocate to SADC Member States to scale up Prevention of Early and Unintended Pregnancies and Unsafe Abortions among Sexually Active Adolescents, by 2023. Strategic Objective 3 (SO3): Strengthen the Capacity of Regional Youth Organisations and Networks in Social Accountability Monitoring of the delivery of Youth-friendly SRH Information and Services in southern Africa, by 2023. Strategic Objective 4 (SO4): Enhance knowledge sharing of models, innovations and strategies on SGBV, Early and Unintended Pregnancies (EUP) and Unsafe Abortions among Adolescents and Young People and SAM for SRHR within the region and across the broader sector, by 2023.