Programmes
1. Sexual and Reproductive Rights for Young People
Sub-Saharan Africa has made huge Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) strides in recent decades – from cutting maternal mortality by a third, to slowly bringing down HIV transmission. But there is far to go, and progress varies widely across this region of massive political, cultural, and economic diversity. SRHR of young people, especially adolescents still need particular attention. The rate of unintended pregnancies, unsafe abortions, sexual violence, early marriages, STI, and HIV are high, gaps between law and implementation are wide, and conservative social and cultural norms have damaged young people’s SRHR in multiple ways. To safeguard their futures, young Africans need deliberate comprehensive multi-sectoral actions today.
WGNRR Africa and partners advocate for the recognition of young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights as human rights, addressing the cultural, social, economic, and political barriers that young people face in accessing their SRHR, improving the availability of youth-friendly SRH services and comprehensive sexuality education CSE), and the meaningful leadership and engagement of young people in driving their futures.
We work to ensure young people and their organizations are better capacitated to advocate for their SRHR effectively. To achieve this, WGNRR Africa strengthens and supports existing youth leadership and activism in SRHR, specifically looking at developing young women’s leadership, improving their understanding of current and emerging SRHR issues, strengthening their advocacy skills, confidence, and motivation to work in a socio-cultural and political space that is very often volatile and comes with a lot of risk.
2. Access to Contraceptives
Expanding access to contraception is an essential component of achieving universal access to reproductive health-care services, as called for in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Contraceptives enable individuals and couples to exercise their right to choose the number, spacing, and timing of births, to avoid high-risk pregnancies, to reduce the chance of unintended pregnancy, to prevent the spread of STIs and HIV, to allow safe and enjoyable sex for everyone, and to improve the socioeconomic conditions of their families. Yet, 25 % of women of reproductive age, predominantly young women, bear the highest proportion of those with an unmet need for contraception.
WGNRR Africa advocates for the availability of a full range of voluntary, rights-based, and particularly women-centric contraceptives and services as a human right. We continue to participate in the review process for ICPD +20, facilitating inputs from grassroots member organisations. We work with allies and working groups to ensure rights-based language is central to national family planning programming, and demand accountability at all levels of implementation. We will continue to emphatically advocate against forced sterilization and population control strategies.
3. Prevention of Maternal death and morbidity
Sub-Saharan Africa suffers from the highest maternal mortality ratio (MMR) of 533 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, or 200,000 maternal deaths a year. Unsafe abortion is one of the most important contributors to maternal mortality and morbidity in the continent. Although the majority of African countries have policies that permit termination of pregnancy under varying legal conditions, yet unsafe abortion claims the lives of 34,000 African women annually, making the issue of unsafe abortion a matter of life and death for African women. These deaths are preventable.
WGNRR Africa believes that any effort to curb maternal mortality and morbidity will be fruitless without addressing the issue of unsafe abortion. Together with its partners and allies, WGNRR Africa strongly advocates for the removal of the legal, economic, and social barriers that force women and girls to resort to unsafe termination of pregnancy; educate the public on the magnitude of unsafe abortion and its cost-implication on national economies, and influence the setup of progressive and harmonized legal standards that would reduce the harms of unsafe abortion. We defend existing legislation and its implementation, oppose restrictive laws and policies, challenge social stigma and discrimination, and advocate for the decriminalization of abortion in Africa to reduce related maternal deaths and morbidity.
The Next Five Years:2023-2027
WGNRR Africa will be mobilizing, capacitating, advocating, and networking with our partners and allies, nationally and regionally on these key programme areas. We will focus on ensuring effective advocacy to advance SRHR in Africa region via cross-movement and cross-national collaboration and learning, increase dialogue among partners, allies, and stakeholders on SRHR challenges and provide solutions, and support capacity/skills development and knowledge sharing (consolidating experiences, lessons, practices and gains) at local and regional levels.
Our theory of change hinges on four levers, which form the strategic priorities of WGNRR Africa over the next 5 years. It is rooted in the belief that advancing SRHR demands collaborative, all-inclusive, and skillful action. The levers include: 1. Strengthening partner and allies’ capacity; 2. Support regional collaboration; 3. Strengthening grassroots movement; 4 Strengthening institutional governance.
In five years, WGNRR Africa will strengthen its work with grassroots, women and youth-focused, and community-based organizations, to lead SRHR actions at national, sub-regional, and regional levels in Africa to advance SRHR and justice; while strengthening its internal governance to grow into an agile, accountable, and effective regional organization.
The impact of our work at national, sub-regional, and regional levels must be informed by the perspectives and needs of grassroots and community organizations and individuals affected by the injustice, abuse of rights discrimination
