Southern African Development Community lawmakers on Monday launched a dashboard in Johannesburg to track the implementation of the regional child marriage law.
The dashboard to track the implementation of the SADC Model Law on Eradicating Child Marriage and Protecting Children Already in Marriage raises hopes that commitments to protect girls will be matched by closer scrutiny and action.
Officially launching the tool, SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF) vice president Sylvia Lucas-Izaks described the event as a milestone in strengthening evidence-based action and accountability across the region.
“. . . so that every girl is counted, every commitment is tracked, and every gap is seen,” she said.
Lucas-Izaks urged stakeholders to access, use and share the dashboard to monitor progress, identify gaps and inform decisions.
She called on them to turn information into action and commitments into results so that accountability leads to lasting change for girls.
SADC PF secretary general Boemo Sekgoma held out the partnership that made the tool possible.
She said the work brought together parliamentarians, traditional leaders, civil society, young people, technical experts and development partners through a technical working group that included the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Children’s Fund, Plan International, Girls Not Brides, Hivos, Care International and Equality Now, alongside the SADC PF.
“Our partners did not simply lend their names to the process. They helped drive it,” Sekgoma said, thanking the partners.
Calling the dashboard “a game changer for parliamentary oversight and accountability,” she urged member parliaments and national stakeholders to “populate it meticulously, update it regularly and use it in scrutiny, law reform, budgeting and public accountability”.
Partners welcomed the dashboard and expressed optimism that it would become a working accountability tool.
Speaking on behalf of civil society organisations, Hivos Zambia country manager Limpo Chinika said it should serve “not merely as a repository of information, but as a practical tool for monitoring progress, identifying gaps and driving action”.
“Evidence must inform decisions. Decisions must shape budgets. Budgets must support implementation. And implementation must improve lives,” she said.
UNFPA deputy regional director for eastern and southern Africa Young Hong also welcomed the dashboard as a means of helping close the gap between regional commitments and results for girls and young people.
“Almost one in three girls marries before the age of 18,” she said.
Hong urged parliamentarians to use their legislative, budgetary and oversight powers to ensure commitments are translated into effective programmes, adequately resourced and producing measurable results.
Young people, too, insisted that the dashboard’s value would depend on what leaders did with it. Aneth Michael of Plan International Tanzania, a long-standing member of the technical working group, challenged decision makers to make the tool count.
“A dashboard cannot end child marriage unless the people with the power to act are willing to act,” she said.
Michael called for stronger legal protections, funding for girls’ education, child protection and sexual and reproductive health services, and meaningful participation by young people.
“Do not simply speak about us. Listen to us,” she urged.
A representative of the East African Community (EAC) said his bloc hoped to learn from the SADC PF’s new dashboard, with a view to strengthening monitoring and reporting across its own member states.
Lawrence Godiah, partnerships and resource mobilisation officer in the office of the East African Community secretary general, said he had been sent to the Johannesburg launch “principally to come and learn” through peer exchange.
He said the EAC has had a child policy since 2016, alongside a child rights monitoring framework.
Partner states have developed monitoring tools, evaluated them and conducted a midterm evaluation of the policy in 2022.
Godiah said the community secretariat had yet to establish a framework through which countries could report on selected indicators.
“We have failed them as a secretariat, I guess, to set up a framework like this where they are able to report these indicators that they have selected,” he said.
– Moses Magadza is the SADC Parliamentary Forum spokesperson.
