The visit in South Africa will focus particularly on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) – thus, the right to make decisions about one’s own body, including choosing when to have children, whether to use contraception and having the opportunity to give birth under proper conditions. In addition to that, the visit will strengthen the commercial ties between Denmark and South Africa, in as much as South Africa is an important growth market for Danish businesses. The dual focus underscores South Africa’s many facets: partly a growth engine, constitutional role model and homeland for world-class institutions, partly a place challenged by inequality, poverty, gender-based violence and unemployment.  

South Africa might be a middle-income country, but when one looks at SRHR statistics, South Africa continues to struggle with challenges that are more typical of low-income countries. For example, 4300 mothers die every year of complications connected with pregnancy, and South Africa struggles continuously to reach the MDG goals for reducing maternal and infant mortality. Among the reasons, the HIV epidemic poses the most massive challenge. With more than 6 million infected, South Africa has the highest total number of HIV-infected people in the world. Also, gender-based violence is widespread in South Africa, where it is estimated by, among others, UNFPA that rape takes place every 26 seconds.

The Crown Princess participates in continuation of her longstanding global advocacy for sexual and reproductive health and rights, among other things as a member of the High Level Task Force for ICPD (International Conference on Population and Development) and through her patronage of the UN’s Population Fund (UNFPA).

The Crown Princess and the minister will, among other things, visit a township in Cape Town and meet some of the people who work to make life worth living for as many as possible of the one-third of young mothers who have HIV in South Africa. In addition, there will be visits at a clinic offering support to victims of gender-based violence to see, among other things, how the private sector contributes to supporting victims of violence.

During the visit, The Crown Princess and the Trade and Development Cooperation Minister will also promote the commercial cooperation between Denmark and South Africa by focusing on Danish positions of strength and competencies in, for example, the wind energy sector and Danish design and architecture.  

Following the visit in South Africa, the Trade and Development Cooperation Minister will visit in Zimbabwe from 6–7 November 2014. It will be the first ministerial visit from a Western country since the controversial election in July 2013 that, after four years of a coalition government, resulted once again in a government completely led by the ZANU-PF party.

The visit will be a chance for the Trade and Development Cooperation Minister – through political discussions, meetings with civil society organizations and visits with Danish-supported activities – to get an insight into how Denmark, in a constructive way, can contribute to promoting the reform agenda in Zimbabwe. 
The minister will, among other things, visit a law court building outside the second largest city in Zimbabwe, Bulawayo, with regard to getting an insight into the challenges Zimbabwe faces in the area of justice. The court building was constructed and fit up with support from, among other sources, Denmark. He will also visit a Danish-funded agricultural programme to hear about the big outstanding challenges to re-establishing farm production and ensuring solid commercial agricultural value chains in Zimbabwe that, first and foremost, benefit the poorest of the population.