In South Africa, one million voices forced the government to declare gender-based violence a national disaster, but months later, the response is still moving like it is business as usual.

Development Diaries reports that on 20 November, 2025, citizens, civil society organisations, and survivors pushed until the government of South Africa declared gender-based violence and femicide as a national disaster.

But the issue that shook a nation got just over a minute of airtime during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2026 State of the Nation Address.

Declaring a national disaster is not supposed to be a ceremonial moment with applause and headlines because under the Disaster Management Act, it is meant to unlock emergency funding, trigger coordinated action across government, and assign clear responsibilities with timelines.

In simple terms, once you declare a disaster, you are supposed to act like one is happening.

But three months in, the systems that should have moved into emergency mode appear to still be stretching, yawning, and asking for more time, with the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, the very body meant to drive this response under the National Council on GBVF Act 9 of 2024, not even fully in place.

There are disputes about how members were selected, complaints from civil society groups, and questions about whether the right people are even at the table.

It is understood that organisations have reported trying to reach the Department of Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities and the Department of Cooperative Governance, only to be met with silence.

If all this feels familiar, it is because South Africa has been here before. There was the 2018 Presidential Summit, followed by a National Strategic Plan in 2020 with billions committed on paper, and then the 2024 law establishing the council.

Each step looked like progress, but the difference is that this latest declaration carries more legal weight, which makes the slow response both disappointing and harder to explain.

Meanwhile, the reality on the ground has not paused to wait for policy alignment, as women, especially black women in townships and rural areas, continue to face the highest risks with the least protection.

Access to care centres, courts, and support services remains uneven, and for many, help is still something you hear about, not something you can reach.

For LGBTQIA+ women and women with disabilities, the gap is even wider, as the systems designed to protect them often struggle to even recognise their specific needs.

If a national disaster is declared and the response still looks like routine paperwork, what exactly changes for the people living through that disaster?

This is where citizens must refuse to let the moment fade. The same energy that forced the declaration must now be redirected towards demanding implementation.

People must ask their representatives what has been funded, what has been activated, and what timelines exist. Civil society must keep pushing for transparency in how decisions are made and who is making them.

At the same time, emergency funding tied to the disaster classification must be made public, coordination between departments must be visible, and the National Council must be properly constituted with meaningful civil society participation.