“We will hold our governments accountable to their commitments to give young people access to sexuality education and youth-friendly services.
“We call for funds to be allocated for sexual and reproductive health programmes in line with regional and global commitments (a minimum allocation of 15 per cent of the national health budget).
“We support the formulation and implementation of laws and programmes that protect the sexual and reproductive health of young people, including addressing harmful traditional practices and removing legal barriers to access sexual and reproductive health services. “We call for comprehensive sexuality education for in- and out-of-school young people through schools, communities, religious and cultural institutions."
“We call for the provision of youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health services to all young people by enabling affordability, acceptability and availability of these services, especially for marginalized and underserved young people.”
This Call to Action was presented by AfriYAN representatives at the 5th Africa Regional Conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) in Windhoek, Namibia, last week. About 250 young people representing 35 African countries attended the conference.
Youths make personal commitments
UNFPA sponsored around 80 young people and several programme officers to attend two days of skills training on sexuality education before the conference. “It was an eye opener for the youth,” said Asha Mohamud, UNFPA Africa Regional Office’s Techical Adviser for Youth HIV/AIDS. “They made individual commitments after its completion, mostly focusing on their own personal behaviour.”
This was followed by a two-day Youth Sexuality Institute, which was attended by this group and by youths sponsored by other UN agencies. The content was presented mostly by UNFPA and it focused on understanding programming for young people and advocacy, including the use of social media.
“AfriYAN members from Nigeria, Ghana, Commoros and Madagascar conduced a Social Media Skills Building Session and it was phenomenal – the youth started using the social media platforms right away. It seems that Facebook is more in use than Twitter and SMS technology or blogging,” Ms. Mohamud said.
UNFPA Regional Director meets youths
UNFPA Africa Regional Director Bunmi Makinwa met with these young people. A plan is underway to ensure that all countries support the efforts of the youth to educate other young people more systematically using the most used and available technology.
The youth representatives presented their Call to Action at the main conference where they participated fully. This section was opened by the President of Namibia, Hon Hifikepunye Pohamba, who was joined on the occasion by his First Lady, Penehupifo Pohamba.
UNFPA organized two plenary sessions – one on effective sexuality education and the other on universal access towards a reduction in maternal mortality. It also co-organized a panel on ESA’s Commitment for Sexuality Education, led by UNESCO with UNFPA support, and a skills building session on designing Effective Sexuality Education Curricula. The latter focused on the global evidence on sexuality education, and the characteristics of effective curricula including the logic model, which is a behaviour change framework for designing effective curricula.
UNFPA contributed recommendations to the Consensus Statement that came out of the conference.
Youths impress with their knowledge and skills
The AfriYAN Executive Members and Secretariat played a key role throughout the three events and impressed with their knowledge and skills on the ICPD beyond 2014 and MDGs post 2015, and the need to plan for these processes and ensure SRHR issues, especially for young people, are incorporated. Sexuality education, ending child marriages, services for young people and marginalized groups, family planning expansion, addressing maternal mortality and ensuring RHCS commodities including male and female condoms were highlighted strongly and were included in the Conference report and consensus document.
AfriYAN’s new leadership is knowledgeable and action oriented, and they deliver on their promises, Ms. Mohamud said. Penehupifo Pohamba, who is also Sec retary for the First Ladies of Africa (OFLA), was so impressed with the leadership that she asked for an audience with them. She has promised to link each AfriYAN chapter with the First Lady in their respective countries so that they work together in furthering youth issues and SRHR.
