Milestones in Adolescent and Youth Health and Development

The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), in collaboration with the United Nations Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), sponsored a series of events in Washington,DC the week of January 22, 2013 to highlight several recent milestones in adolescent and youth health and development. These include:

  • The new USAID Youth in Development Policy (October 2012), wherein the U.S. government commits for the first time to a holistic and comprehensive approach to youth development and transitions from adolescence to adulthood. The policy importantly aims to mainstream youth in development policies and programs and to elevate the level of youth participation in USAID’s programming around the world.
  • The 2012 Lancet Adolescent Health Series (April 2012), which seeks to “put the young person, not the specific issue, centre stage” and aims to move adolescent health into the mainstream of global health agendas.
  • The ICPD Global Youth Forum (December 2012), a multi-stakeholder international forum sponsored by the United Nations Population Fund and hosted by the government of Indonesia. The forum, which took place in Bali last December, resulted in an historic and cutting-edge set of recommendations for youth health, rights and development.

More than 150 individuals from academia, government, philanthropy and advocacy and implementing organizations and from a broad range of fields participated in the events, which took place at FHI-360, the UN Foundation, USAID and the World Bank. For more information on these exciting events, please visit the links above and see the presentations here: