Including adolescent and young people and particularly adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health in the sustainable development goals

Sarah Gold, a Program Associate with IWHC, who participated in both the World Conference on Youth and the UN Economic and Social Council Youth Forum writes:

The Zero Draft of the “Introduction and Proposed Goals and Targets on Sustainable Development for the Post2015 Development Agenda” for the 12^th session of the Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals (OWG-12) is very weak on adolescents and youth, with no mention of adolescents and only a handful of references to young people under the focus areas on education and employment. The document does not include a target on comprehensive sexuality education, a critical omission that must be addressed. Furthermore, there are no references to adolescent girls or adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights. It is imperative that governments take urgent action to integrate the needs and rights of young people into the SDGs.

A critical shortcoming of the MDGs was their failure to substantively address the needs of adolescents and young people. There are over 1.8 billion young people in the world today, 90 percent of whom live in developing countries (UNFPA 2013). It is essential that the Post-2015 Development Agenda recognize multifaceted and cross-cutting needs of adolescents and youth, with a focus on their human rights and health needs. There should be a clear reference to adolescents and young people in the chapeau of the OWG 12 zero draft.

A major omission in the OWG 12 zero draft is comprehensive sexuality education. Sustainable development will only occur when girls and boys alike understand their bodies, know their rights, and have the necessary skills to negotiate on important aspects of their lives. CSE can be integrated under Goal 4 (Education) and goal 5 (Gender Equality). It will also be important to include references to adolescents and youth in the SRHR targets under Goal 3 (Health) and Goal 5 (Gender Equality).

At the World Conference on Youth, Member States and young people agreed to a bold and progressive outcome document that explicitly calls on governments to fulfill young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights. The Colombo Declaration calls for “universal access to sexual and reproductive health services and information” and “universal access to health including sexual and reproductive health and rights”, among other important priorities.

The Global Youth Call presented at last week’s ECOSOC Youth Forum also contains targets that demonstrate the strong consensus on adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health and rights. Key recommendations include targets on “comprehensive education on human sexuality” and “universal access to sexual and reproductive health, reproductive rights and HIV services.” It will be important to build on the momentum from Colombo and the ECOSOC Youth Forum to integrate stronger language on youth and adolescents in the OWG 12 zero draft.