Doubling down on the demand for more targeted investments in digital solutions and innovation to accelerate achievement of the United Nations Population Fund’s three transformative results (to end [1] unmet need for family planning, [2]preventable maternal death and [3] all forms of gender based violence and harmful practices); UNFPA colleagues and partners from across the West Central Africa region were hosted by UNFPA Nigeria in a 3-day co-creation workshop in Lagos geared towards the restructuring and rebranding of the #Tech4Youth initiative.
#Tech4Youth, originally initiated in (year) as a collaboration between five UNFPA country offices within the region (Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Nigeria) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), currently functions as a joint digital e-learning platform comprised of educational sexual and reproductive health and rights content for both in and out of school adolescents and youth, from 10 to 24 years old. The workshop held in Lagos was convened in an effort to establish the governance structure of the programme, invite more countries within region to contribute to the platform beyond the sexual reproductive health to include other UNFPA mandate areas, and to also consolidate further tech innovation plans being developed by countries into multiple sub-initiatives that would underpin the overall #Tech4Youth programme.
In addition to the 5 countries originally contributing to #Tech4Youth, the regional workshop was attended by a total 35 participants from UNFPA Gambia, Mali, Cameroon, Gabon, Chad and Cote D’Ivoire, as well as representatives of the UNFPA West Central Africa Regional Office and ITU headquarters. In addition to intensive brainstorming exercises, the engagement solidified recommendations on the architecture and operations of #Tech4Youth governance and also provided teams direct advisory and guidance towards the country-specific tech innovation proposals and processes.
The #Tech4Youth initiative is expected to expand, be scaled up and diversify as a result of the conclusions and outputs drawn from the sessions held during the Lagos workshop.
As stated by the the UNFPA Nigeria innovation team lead, Dr. Babatunde Adelekan, when asked on about the trajectory and goal of the #Tech4Youth platform:
“Our aim is to ensure [young people] live to their full potential and for us, innovation and digitalization is a critical pathway to accelerate this […] information is key in understanding the issues surrounding [young people] in their environment to make right decisions […] #Tech4Youth is a huge project which will stand the test of time.
