Leading meaningful engagement of adolescents and youth in PMNCH and beyond

Statement by the Executive Director on behalf of PMNCH
– August 6, 2020

Over the past few months, young people have gathered on social media to share their experiences of discrimination, abuse, tokenism and uncompensated work for young people in global health and development – many of whom are members of the PMNCH Adolescent and Youth Organization (AYC). )). PMNCH believes that this is a critical moment in history to mobilize and act around all forms of discrimination (i.e., racism, ageism, sexism), including youth discrimination, tokenism, and exploitation.

In 2015, PMNCH created a constituency for adolescents and young people (AYC), providing young people with the opportunity to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) through their active participation and involvement in the implementation of the Global Strategy for Women, Children and Adolescents. , AYC¹ is the only constituency that represents a segment of the population within the PMNCH, making it a unique and dynamic group.

After leading to the development and implementation of the system A global statement of meaningful adolescent and youth engagement (MAYE), PMNCH strongly affirms that young people have a fundamental right to participate actively and meaningfully in all things that affect their lives.

This is based on a growing body of evidence demonstrating the importance of MAYE in development efforts and reaffirms the PMNCH’s commitment to protecting and promoting the rights of all young people and ensuring that they are central to agenda setting as well as development, implementation, monitoring , and an assessment of all policies, programs and initiatives that affect and protect them.

We also recognize the importance of involving early adolescents (ages 10-14) and encourage the additional precautions needed to ensure their significant engagement and ensure their safety.

In addition to launching MAYE Global Approval, PMNCH is committed to ensuring that we ‘conduct interviews’ with MAYE and ensuring that our members have the knowledge and skills to implement MAYE in their own organizations as well as their own operations.

To date, PMNCH, under the leadership of AYC and the Secretariat on this issue, has taken significant steps to ensure the approval and implementation of MAYE over the years:

Opportunities for meaningful collaboration

1) Establishment of the AY constituency (AYC) and securing the seat of the AY in the PMNCH Committee, the central decision-making body, as well as ensuring the representation of the constituency in all relevant committees and working groups of the PMNCH;

2) Ensuring AYC’s leading roles with a fee for the development and implementation of a number of initiatives and products, while raising the visibility and exposure of AYC’s work, through promotion on social media;

3) Creating a mechanism for AYC leaders turning from their leadership roles to be supported by donations from ‘advisors’ to ensure adequate transition and support to incoming AYC leaders;

4) Identify AYC members to work with other PMNCH members on various projects, committees, and meetings and request that PMNCH members reimburse AY representatives for their time with a fee, scholarship, and co-authorship (if applicable).

5) increase the position and opportunities for the Youth Secretariat, recognizing that currently about 15% of the Secretariat is under the age of 30 and 35% under the age of 35;

Financial investment and capacity building

6) establishing grants for a number of networks run by young people globally and nationally to strengthen the youth movement through coalition building and support their capacity for advocacy and accountability for WCAH;

7) offering MAYE various capacity building opportunities, including mentoring, co-production of knowledge products and, among other things, offering digital tools and webinars;

8) Establish a policy for youth representation with remuneration in decision-making bodies, as well as wide opportunities for public speaking, co-authorship of works, etc. – this not only ensures the presence of youth voices, but also that AYC members are actively engaged and recognized for their work as young professionals.

Responsibility

9) Mobilize approximately 250 confirmations for the Global Declaration of Consensus on MAYE and establish a progress accountability monitoring mechanism with their progress monitoring partners. PMNCH will report the findings of the survey at its flagship event, the PMNCH Accountability Breakfast, during UNGA 2020 and 2021;

10) Conduct an independent evaluation of the PMNCH AYC in 2019, which identified key recommendations for improving the PMNCH model of engagement with young people and is currently being implemented.

We remain committed to working closely with the leadership of our adolescent and youth unit to improve our MAJ:

1) Continuing to facilitate dialogue and action between the AYC and its nine other constituencies to ensure that the PMNCH jointly takes appropriate and necessary actions to create an optimal and conducive environment for meaningful youth engagement, including the establishment and revision of remuneration policies (including amounts) meet their needs;

2) Ensuring that AYC operates effectively with its tools and resources as a strong and unified national, regional and global movement of leaders;

3) ensuring the representation of AYC members, in all their diversity, including those most affected, who are actively engaged as new committees and working groups in line with the new PMNCH 2021-2025 strategy;

4) Strengthen our communication around MAYE to ensure that the international community is aware of the work of the PMNCH on MAYE, while encouraging members to follow similar principles and guidelines;

5) Developing guidelines for youth professionalism, drawing on the experiences of young people on social media, in order to build the capacity of members to operationalize the May Consensus Statement; and,

6) Using the PMNCH platform to convene and coordinate with members of all constituencies to achieve accountability for MAYE.

To our youth and youth leaders, we thank you for hearing your voices and we encourage you to continue to speak and take steps to eliminate professional discrimination. PMNCH stands in solidarity with you and supports your progress!

The theme for International Youth Day 2020 on August 12 is Engaging young people for global action, This is an opportunity to put the focus of the MOTHER and mobilize commitments for action.

Follow @PMNCH for updates and don’t forget to tag #YouthDay # adolescents2030 #YouthEngagement

1. The AYC consists of ambitious and inclusive organizations run by young people from 192 countries, operating at the national, regional and global levels.