YouthConnekt Africa Summit 2022: Closing remarks by Lydia Zigomo, UNFPA Regional Director, Japanese and Southern Africa
It was a terrific honor for me to have the ability to be a part of you in particular person at this yr’s YouthConnekt Africa Summit in Kigali. I used to be impressed by the phrases of our visitor of honour, Madame Jeannette Kagame. I used to be notably happy to take heed to such an inspiring panel on a subject near my coronary heart, specifically entry to sexual and reproductive well being (SRH) and psychological well being – the chance to put money into younger individuals’s well being.
I want to start by expressing my gratitude to the federal government and other people of Rwanda for internet hosting the YouthConnekt Africa Summit 2022, underneath the management of the President of the Republic, HE Paul Kagame. I congratulate the co-organizers of the 2022 YouthConnekt Africa Summit and salute the partnership between UNFPA, the Imbuto Basis, the YCA Hub and different stakeholders for organizing such an thrilling and significant high-level panel.
I do know these of you on this room absolutely already agree on the significance of addressing sexual and reproductive well being and rights (SRHR) and psychological well being, as a pillar of any program and technique for youth improvement. But we have to speak about it, with the intention to discover collectively the most effective methods to combine this matter into different initiatives that, at first look, could seem unrelated and but have a direct correlation.
In the present day we listened to younger individuals, consultants, coverage makers and leaders – sexual and reproductive well being and rights and psychological well being are basic human rights, which we should promote, defend and uphold. They have been first acknowledged as human rights in 1994, on the Worldwide Convention on Inhabitants and Improvement (ICPD), held in Cairo, Egypt.
The ICPD Plan of Motion clearly states that each one individuals, particularly girls and younger individuals, ought to obtain high quality info to make choices about their reproductive well being; have a secure and satisfying intercourse life; have the power to breed; and should have the correct to resolve if, when and whom to marry. The identical ICPD Plan of Motion makes clear reference to psychological well being and particularly to reproductive psychological well being.
There’s a direct hyperlink between individuals’s capability to get pleasure from these rights and their degree of socio-economic empowerment. Thus, sexual and reproductive well being and rights, good psychological well being and the empowerment of ladies and younger persons are interdependent and important for socio-economic progress, sustainable improvement, poverty eradication and gender equality. sexes.
In 2019, when stakeholders gathered on the Nairobi Summit to mark 25 years of this historic ICPD, the widespread thread was “to speed up the supply of the unfinished enterprise of the ICPD”. The Summit ended with voluntary commitments to speed up the implementation of the forward-looking SRHR agenda to realize the Sustainable Improvement Targets and targets by 2030.
A number of the commitments particularly targeted on “funding in schooling, job alternatives, well being, together with household planning and sexual and reproductive well being providers, for adolescents and younger individuals, particularly ladies, to totally harness the promise of the demographic dividend”, as outlined within the 4 pillars of the African Union’s Demographic Dividend Roadmap.
The catalytic influence of SRHR on the power of younger ladies to finish their schooling and benefit from financial alternatives can’t be overstated. When a younger schoolgirl finds herself with a being pregnant she hadn’t deliberate, her probabilities of reaching her full potential are drastically diminished in a single day. An undesirable being pregnant is a nightmare for a younger lady who has simply landed her dream job.
I’m actually inspired to see and listen to younger individuals taking management and sharing progressive initiatives to create jobs in several sectors – the inventive industries with movie, music, arts and tradition and expertise. Entry to sexual and reproductive well being and psychological well being info and providers is a defend and catalyst for these goals.
As we be taught of those progressive experiences and greatest practices, the query to ask is: how can we scale to have a extra significant influence? That is the place I imagine like-minded establishments such because the ILO, World Financial institution, UNFPA, Imbuto Basis and others are available in.
In conclusion, I’ll let you know that the proof could be very clear: there has by no means been a greater time for all of us to stay as much as our beliefs and our guarantees. We should put our cash and efforts the place our pursuits lie – scaling up SRHR and psychological well being interventions is a vital bridge to realize the much-desired financial empowerment of thousands and thousands of younger Africans. We can not ignore the pure human technique of progress, at the same time as we pursue the best beliefs outlined within the SDGs and the Africa We Need from Agenda 2063.
The younger individuals of Africa are prepared. UNFPA is dedicated. I hope that you just too!