Issues & Strategies

Meeting the Development and Participation Rights of Adolescent Girls

At the core of this inter-agency project are the following fundamental building blocks:

• Creating a conducive environment to keep adolescent girls in school through the secondary level.
• Ensuring that the particular reproductive health needs of adolescents are addressed and youth-friendly services provided.
• Working with communities, including families, parents and other legal guardians, local political and religious leaders, to increase public awareness of the reproductive and sexual health issues affecting adolescents.
• Providing life skills and counselling so that adolescent girls are aware of their rights and have knowledge of services available.
• Developing vocational training and income generating programmes for adolescent girls to increase their status, independence and opportunities.
• Mobilizing the support of decision makers at all levels to support programmes aimed at improving adolescent sexual and reproductive health.
• Contributing to equitable and sustainable development by reinforcing the capacity of national governments to engage girls in the social, economic and political life of the country.
  

Framework for Action

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) stemming from the Millennium Summit of the United Nations form a framework for the United Nations system to work coherently together towards a common vision. A number of issues affecting adolescents directly figure among the MDGs. These include completion of primary schooling, elimination of gender disparity in primary and secondary education, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, reducing maternal mortality, and implementing strategies for decent and productive work for youth.

The Adolescent Girls Initiative plays a key role in placing ‘adolescence’ at the forefront of the development agenda in the three implementing UN organizations, and is central to achieving the MDGs. Through this initiative the concept of adolescent participation is being institutionalized and adolescent issues and rights are being mainstreamed. Best practices and lessons learned are contributing to the design of the policy framework for adolescent programming. Indicators for measurement go beyond health and education. The realities of girls’ lives are seen more clearly and strategies are more clearly articulated at the country and regional levels. Protective environments for adolescents' health and development are being created and strengthened.

At the country level, the MDGs are supplemented by other developmental frameworks such as poverty reduction strategies, sector-wide approaches and health sector reforms with the overall aim of harmonizing efforts by development agencies to reduce poverty. For the United Nations system, the Common Country Assessments and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework are key instruments. The challenge is to ensure that the concerns of adolescents are mainstreamed within these frameworks so that the goals spelled out in the MDGs are fully achieved.

At the national level, this initiative translated into project is instrumental in making the voices of adolescents heard. The long-term success of the project, however, will depend on how these voices continue to reverberate and influence larger developmental goals.

Promoting Policies and Programmes on Adolescents

The United Nations major global conferences in the last decade, particularly the World Conference on Human Rights (Vienna, 1993), the International Conference on Population and Development (Cairo, 1994), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, CRC (1991), and the Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing, 1995) and their five-year reviews, have made great strides in raising international awareness of the needs and rights of adolescents, who comprise 20 per cent of the world's population. While governments have acknowledged and pledged to address adolescent needs and protect their rights, it is important to examine whether their commitments have been translated into laws and policies. It is important because laws and public policies are powerful tools that can either facilitate the promotion of rights or restrict or even deny some rights, such as, for example, adolescents' access to education and reproductive health services.

Knowledge and understanding of the current state of laws and polices at the national level and their implications and impact on adolescents are essential for:

• Identifying policy gaps
• Reforming laws, if necessary;
• Providing guidance in the development of programmes; and
• Designing better projects within the framework of adolescent policies and programmes.