For International Youth Day, Let’s Make Changes to “Business as Usual”

By Dr. Samukeliso Dube, Executive Director, FP2030

At this moment, we have an opportunity like never before. There are more than 1.8 billion adolescents and young people in the world, the largest number in history aged 10-24 years. The time is now to ensure they’re able to control their fertility and plan and space their pregnancies. If they aren’t armed with this information and given the opportunity to make these decisions and exercise their rights, we will all face the consequences. If young people – and indeed many other groups and demographics beyond married heterosexual couples – are not prioritized, and family planning programs are not made accessible to more populations of people, we will miss the targets set down by the Sustainable Development Goals. We will lose progress on many human rights indicators like gender equality and economic empowerment, and we will compound many other crises facing young people and the world, like school dropouts, child marriage, and maternal mortality. We can’t let this happen. 

FP2030 is ensuring young people are prioritized in family planning programs and commitments by ensuring each regional hub has a youth engagement officer, and each focal point team has a youth representative. This is an effort to ensure our global support network treats young people as equals and as decision makers when working with governments, donors, and other global stakeholders. We’re also proud to share that 14 commitments to FP2030 are from youth-led organizations. These organizations are pioneers in their communities, leading the way in making family planning more accessible to young people, challenging social norms, and building up the leaders of tomorrow. 

This weekend was International Youth Day, and I’m glad to share the FP2030 youth officers from all FP2030 regional hubs are supporting PMNCH’s 1.8 Billion Young People for Change campaign, ahead of the Global Forum for Adolescents, calling on governments to take the lead and be intentional about budget allocations made to adolescents. You can read their full statement here.  

I couldn’t be more supportive. I want more for today’s young people than maybe their parents had access to. I want us to challenge the social norms that keep women and girls from living up to their full potential. Parenthood is of course a wonderful path for a life to take, but it’s not the only path worth traveling. When we can plan and space our pregnancies, we’re more likely to complete our education, participate in our communities, and better care for children we may already have. Critically, family planning gives women a choice. 

Let’s stop over politicizing family planning – it's preventing women and girls from having the tools they need to live out the lives they’re dreaming of. Making sure women can plan and space their pregnancies shouldn’t be controversial, it’s a simple human right. For International Youth Day, I’d like to call on the global community to step up our efforts to ensure young people can make their own decisions about their fertility.  

Ministries of education – young people need accurate information on sexual health and rights, and if it’s not provided in formal avenues, they will find it elsewhere. Let’s liberalize the availability of comprehensive sex education so young people can make informed decisions about their futures.  

Ministries of health can advocate and pass policies that increase access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, and they can work with ministers of finance to ensure sustainable and significant budgets for youth SRH services. Ministers of youth can focus on entrenched social norms about what youth want and what they need – we don’t need to make assumptions, we can let young people tell us themselves. The same goes for service providers – leave your assumptions at the door when you walk into your clinic. We don’t know what a client wants or needs just because we know their age, marital status, or other information.  

As the leader of a globally focused partnership, I’m asking other international nongovernment organizations (INGOs) to trust youth to lead – lead your workshops, lead your teams, lead your commitments. Young people have their own expertise and lived experience that is relevant to our programs and organizations – they're not just the beneficiaries of services, they’re untapped experts in what it’s like to access services as a young person today.  

Lastly, I'd ask donors to fund programs that prioritize access to services for young people, knowing they are an endlessly diverse demographic with overlapping and intersecting identities.  

At FP2030, we always keep young people at the forefront of our work, but there is always room to grow. Our ongoing commitment is to trust youth, and to continue listening. We will ensure young people can be leaders of the family planning agenda, and we will intentionally advocate for programs and commitments that will lead to increased access and use of rights-based family planning services for young people.  

As one of the largest and most diverse demographics our movement serves, we know there will always be more work to do to better serve young people. We commit to continuing to listen and to learn from you, as partners and as equals.