Template to be used to encode semantic wikilinks. For example, both Berlin and Europe link to Germany indicating a relationship, but no knowledge of the nature of that relationship is specified. Using this template, one could put on the Berlin page a link to Germany using this syntax: {{User:AndrewGNF/SWL|target=Germany|type=capital of}}. More details on why one would want to encode the semantic nature of links can be found at http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Introduction_to_Semantic_MediaWiki and Semantic MediaWiki.
And for more context as far as rationale, yes, this is an effort to allow Wikipedia to encode semantic links prior to official adoption of a specific solution (like Semantic MediaWiki).