On the heels of International Youth Day, stakeholders from several agencies, including donors, humanitarian organizations, and development implementers, gathered on August 13 to share research and programmatic experiences from implementing adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) activities in emergency settings. This timely event—hosted by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and IAWG’s sub-working group on ASRH—afforded ASRH advocates a venue to hear from a youth leader; discuss success stories, lessons learned, and challenges ahead in ASRH programming; and brainstorm solutions for advancing the ASRH in emergencies field.
The interactive event, which featured a graphic note-taker who illustrated key takeaways and insights from all the discussions, began with a presentation from Khadijah Moore, who also shared a blog post about this event on World Humanitarian Day (link opens in a new window). Khadijah is the president of the Youth Advocacy Movement at the Dominica Planned Parenthood Association and a Women Deliver Young Leader. Afterward, IRC discussed preliminary results from their ASRH project They Know Best in Northeast Nigeria and South Sudan. Participants also heard about ASRH service uptake and approaches to increase ASRH access in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yemen from a joint family planning and post-abortion care program implemented by CARE, IRC, Save the Children, and RAISE/Columbia University.
Throughout all of the presentations and discussions, the theme of meaningful engagement during all phases of the program and emergency-to-development cycle resonated. FP2020 facilitated discussions for ASRH stakeholders to agree on several key commitments to take forth in the next year, which will be summarized and shared in a synthesis report in the coming weeks. If you are interested in contributing to the report, please email Katie Meyer at kmeyer@savechildren.org.