Mw, Sadc criticised over sluggish agriculture, health
The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) has said the region is struggling to embrace modern farming technologies, universal health coverage and gender equality, effectively slowing down social-economic development.
Sadc Parliamentary Forum secretary general Boemo Mmandu Sekgoma said this on Wednesday in her virtual address to the Regional Dialogue for Non-State Actors on the Sadc Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (Risdp) 2020-2030.
The ultimate objective of the plan is to deepen integration in the region and accelerate poverty eradication and the attainment of other economic and non-economic development goals.
She said archaic farming methods have made agriculture unattractive.
“It is clear that generally in Sadc we are very far from the targets set out in the Rispd. For instance, agriculture techniques are very outdated and rudimentary in most areas of southern Africa with little attractiveness to the youth,” said Sekgoma.
Universal health coverage (UHC) is a World Health Organisation concept that seeks to ensure that people have access to the health care they need without suffering financial hardship.
She said UHC in the region, is “considered as a fictional promise for most citizens who have to invest in health care from their pockets as part of their expenditures.”
On gender parity, referring to World Economic Forum findings, Sekgoma said the sub-Saharan region at 68.2 percent was behind when compared against Europe at 76.3 percent.
Malawi’s Parliamentary Health Committee chairperson Mathews Ngwale said UHC was a new concept which needs time to be implemented.
He, however, said the government has been increasing the budget on key health sectors, raising hopes of UHC success.
Malawi Health Equity Network executive director George Jobe also echoed Ngwale’s remarks, adding that there was a need for further investment from other non-State actors such as the corporate sector if health systems are to be strengthened.
Meanwhile, Dedza South Constituency lawmaker Ishmael Ndaila Onani, who has been attached to the Sadc Parliamentary Forum, said there was need for establishment of a special fund to help escalate agriculture mechanisation.
Onani, who is also the forum’s chairperson for food and natural resources, said: “It is not that there is no human resource but rather there is no financial capacity to adopt integrated farming systems that need machines.”
The Rispd pillars focus on infrastructure, social and human capital development and other cross-cutting issues including gender, youth, environment and climate change and disaster risk management.
It was approved three years ago as an anchor of the Sadc Vision 2050, which seeks to achieve a peaceful, inclusive, competitive, and middle to high-income industrialised region, where all citizens enjoy sustainable economic well-being, justice and freedom.
The Sadc Parliamentary Forum hosted the dialogue in collaboration with Partnership for Social Accountability Alliance, a consortium of Action Aid International, Public Service Accountability Monitor of Rhodes University, Eastern and Southern Africa Small Scale Farmers’ Forum and SAfAIDS.na
