Background
The Liberian Youth Voices for Accelerating the ICPD (L-YV-4-ICPD) is a platform of formal and informal adolescent and youth-led networks and organizations seeking to transform policies, strategies, approaches, and programmatic responses to work with and for young people through youth-led action, advocacy, and accountability on SRHR and bodily autonomy. The L-YV-4-ICPD will advance the relevant national, regional, and international processes and outcomes led by, involving, and/or targeting young people. This includes the revised national Public Health Law, the revised National Youth Policy, periodic reviews of Liberia’s Commitments for Adolescent and Youth Wellbeing in the SDGs, Addis Ababa Declaration on Population and Development, national Family Planning 2030 commitments, national ICPD@25 Commitments, the Bali Global Youth Forum Declaration, the Lisboa+21 Declaration on Youth Policies & Programmes, the Compact for Engaging Young People in Humanitarian Action, the Youth 2030: UN Youth Strategy, amongst others.
The five key actions that drive members of the L-YV-4-ICPD long-term commitment to young people include the following:
- Action 1: Ensure the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of all young people are respected, guaranteed, and promoted, including the right to safe, legal, affordable, and accessible abortion care services within the confines of the law, irrespective of age, and that young people have access to evidence-based SRHR information and education, as well as affordable youth-friendly SRH services including emergency contraception and sexuality education.
- Action 2: Prioritize adolescents health and wellbeing, eliminate all legal and structural barriers preventing them from accessing comprehensive and affordable care, and provide an appropriately tailored package of adolescent-responsive knowledge and services addressing their SRHR, including sexuality education, in a manner consistent with their evolving capacity, that is mutually reinforcing, evidence-based, and free of stigma and discrimination, with particular attention to younger adolescents who are often left behind.
- Action 3: Ban all harmful practices against girls and young key populations including non-consensual, unethical, and medically unnecessary practices, and create legal protections for girls and young key populations from violence and discrimination.
- Action 4: Provide sustained, flexible, and multi-year funding to adolescent and youth-led organizations, increase funding for adolescent and youth-led initiatives, and invest the necessary time and financial resources to strengthen the capacity of adolescent and youth advocates that are leading the change at local, national, regional, and global levels to advocate for their SRHR and realize the ICPD PoA, the Beijing Platform for Action, and the 2030 Agenda.
- Action 5: Develop strong youth-led accountability mechanisms that are youth-initiated, managed, and monitored and promote the responsive and meaningful engagement of all young people in the process of accessing information, negotiating, designing, implementing, and evaluating initiatives, including early adolescents who require additional precautions to secure their meaningful engagement and ensure their safety.
If you are interested in your organization becoming a member of the L-YV-4-ICPD kindly apply as per the following steps:
- Submit a completed application package via email to lyv4icpd@unfpa.org with the subject line LYV4ICPD Application Package by Monday, November 13th, 2023, 11:59 pm Liberia time. The application package should include the following:
- Organization profile
- Detailed list of members of the organization, including names, age, gender, and title
- Organizational letter/statement of interest
- Organizational recommendation letter for the nominated two focal persons
- Biography of the two nominated focal points
For more information, please see the attached Terms of Reference.
If you have any questions about the L-YV-4-ICPD or the application process, feel free to contact us at: lyv4icpd@unfpa.org