Last week, YOURS was invited by the World Health Organization’s Adolescent Health Department to discuss a broad range of health issues facing youth. As part of a consultation on determinants for adolescent health, YOURS joined a range of youth leaders from sexual and reproductive health to substance abuse. The WHO consultation served as a consultation on the forthcoming report on Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health as well as a youth scorecard on health determinants.
During the two day consultation held at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland, youth health champions discussed and gathered contributions for accelerating action for adolescent health which will feed into both the United Nations Secretary General’s Global Strategy on Women’s, Children’s and Adolescent’s Health and the World Health Organization’s Framework for Accelerated Action for Adolescent Health. The Adolescent Health Department stated,
“We believe that young people should meaningfully participate in the decisions that affect their health and that are great leaders and agents of change”.
A range of topics were health topics discussed and brought to the table such as violence and road safety, substance abuse, non-communicable diseases, humanitarian efforts, sexual and reproductive health and range of determinants for adolescent health. YOURS contributed to the global road safety topic building on our previous involvement with a similar consultation in Johannesburg, South Africa.
During the consultation, youth undertook a mapping exercise to identify key determinants of adolescent health.
Manpreet Darroch, Comms Officer at YOURS who attended the event said, ‘This consultation served as a unique opportunity to map the key issues facing youth in terms of adolescent health. The sheer variety of youth leaders championing specific health related advocacy, interventions and action brought a plethora of key issues to the table and the team did incredibly well to prioritize topics that will feed into the Global Stategy as well as an exciting opportunity to empower youth with WHO’s youth health scorecard concept’.
Two related events took place during which the aim to identify the elements for a proposal for funding the development and testing of a youth-led scorecard on adolescent health, based on checklists/tools that young people can use to monitor presence and absence of determinants of health and interventions to promote and protect health in their countries and to track health outcomes.
The group of youth champions from all across the world gathered in Geneva.
The first event took place on the 12th and 13th of May with a broad range of youth champions advocating for health. From the 14th May, the consultation group joined in the sessions of the International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) Pre-World Health Assembly Youth Workshop on Global Health Diplomacy. There was also a stream of sessions focusing on adolescent health during which the group continued the work begun on 12/13th May with additional participants. The discussions during these days were incorporated into into a concrete advocacy strategy for use during the World Health Assembly and beyond. The World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, is runs from the 18th of May to May 26th.
In continuing the consultation process, YOURS invites all members of the Global Youth Network for Road Safety to participate in this survey on the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health. We encourage you to read the Zero Draft and offer input from your perspectives on road safety issues.