Please find presentations for THEMATIC TOPIC 1. Making Healthy Choices.PPT files can always be collected from your youth officers.

1. Sexual and Reproductive Health
among Young Fijians
National Youth and Sport Conference
Suva, Republic of Fiji
24 June, 2014
By Dr. Laurent Zessler, Director and Representative
UNFPA Pacific Sub-Regional Office, Suva, Fiji.

2. Outline
• What is UNFPA
• International Conference on Population and Development
(ICPD)
• Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH)
• Youth SRH in Fiji and the Pacific
• UNFPA Programming with Youth in the Pacific

3. UNFPA, the United Nations Population
Fund, delivers a world where every
pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe,
every young person's potential is fulfilled.
 Population Dynamics
 Sexual and Reproductive Health, including Family
Planning
 Gender equality and women’s empowerment
 Supporting adolescents and youth
 Responding to the HIV & AIDS Epidemic
 Assisting in Emergencies

4. International Conference on Population and Development
A total of 179 governments signed up to the ICPD Programme of Action
which set out to:
• Provide universal access to family planning and sexual
and reproductive health services and reproductive
rights;
• Deliver gender equality, empowerment of women and
equal access to education for girls;
• Address the individual, social and economic impact of
urbanization and migration;
• Support sustainable development and address
environmental issues associated with population
changes.
The Programme of Action and benchmarks added at the ICPD +5
review went on to inform the eight Millennium Development Goals

5. Sexual and Reproductive Health

6. Sexual and Reproductive Health
Both men and women need access to information and appropriate
health services throughout their lives. Such information and services
should be gender sensitive and allow:
 All individuals to make informed choices about sexuality
and reproduction, and to have a safe and satisfying
sexual life, free of violence and coercion
 Women to go safely through pregnancy and childbirth
 Couples to have the best chance of having a healthy
infant
 Women to avoid unwanted pregnancy and to address the
consequences of unsafe abortion
 Access to prevention, treatment and care for sexually
transmitted infections, including HIV.

7. Maternal Mortality and Skilled Birth Attendance

8. Young People and SRH
Adolescents are reaching
puberty earlier, marrying later
and having more premarital
sex.
The unmet need for
contraceptives among
adolescents is more than
twice that of married women
One third of curable,
preventable STIs affect people
younger than 25 years

9. Key SRH Issues for Young People
 Sexual activity before & within marriage
 Unmet contraceptive need
 Unwanted pregnancies
 Unsafe abortion
 Access to SRH services and maternal health care
(exclusion based on age or marital status)
 Sex workers
 Vulnerability to STIs and HIV/AIDS, including married
girls
 Violence, rape, including inside marriage, and
 Sexual identity and sexual preference

10. Youth SRH in
Fiji and the
Pacific

11. Challenges
 High rates of teen pregnancy
 Low rates of condom use and other family
planning
 Access to youth friendly health services still
low, but improving
 Very limited youth-specific data available on
SRH and other youth issues
 Mental health and alcohol & drug use are
emerging issues

12. Teen Pregnancy in The Pacific
Adolescent Fertility Rate = Number of live births per year among 1,000 girls aged 15 - 19

13. Condom Use in the Pacific

14. HIV in Fiji

15. UNFPA
Programming
with Youth:
Ensure you
are in the
picture

16. Areas of Focus
1. Comprehensive Sexuality Education
2. Youth Friendly Health Services
1. Peer Outreach
2. Youth Leadership and Engagement

17. Comprehensive Sexuality Education
• UNFPA is developing a Joint Program with UNICEF
and UNESCO (2014-2017)
• Will Provide Support to PICs in the areas of:
i. Supportive Policy
ii. Curriculum Development
iii. Educational resources
iv. Pre-service and in-service training
v. Research, monitoring and evaluation
vi. Advocacy and community participation

18. Youth Engagement and Leadership
• Advocacy (Governments, Communities,
Churches, Schools)
• Programming
 Peer/Community Educator
 Through Sport (education, awareness,
commodities, Champions/role models)
 Service provision (Youth Friendly Health Services)
 Community distribution of condoms
 Human rights promotion and protection
• Advisor (e.g. Advisory panel to Comprehensive Sexuality
Education Programming or Youth Friendly Health Services)

19. Be in the picture: take a selfie
ICPD Review
 A global process
 Fiji participation
Youth Selfies Campaign
 Global collection of selfies by young people in support of a UNFPA
proposal for a youth goal to be included in the post-2015 development
agenda.
 Participate and ensure the Pacific is not forgotten or represented
 More and updated information will be available from:
1. UNFPA Pacific website: http://pacific.unfpa.org
2. UNFPA Pacific social media platforms: Facebook/Twitter/Instagram