Youth Program Final Letter_Women Deliver

1. We, the young people of the Women Deliver Youth Working Group, representing a number of young
people and youth organizations from across the world, call on delegates present at the Women Deliver
2010 Conference to commit to our call to action on issues affecting women, girls, and adolescents.
Globally, we now have the largest generation of youth in history: more than 1.2 billion young people are
between 10 and 19 years old. At this conference and beyond, we ask you to address young people’s
sexual and reproductive health and rights as an integral part of ensuring the health and well-being of not
only individuals, but communities worldwide. The effects of policies and programs that fail to address
the specific needs and realities of young people are long lasting and detrimental to achieving
internationally agreed upon commitments, action plans, and goals focusing on sexual and reproductive
health and rights, maternal health, universal access to reproductive health, HIV and AIDS, and gender
equality. Young people, particularly young women and adolescent girls, are disproportionately affected
by the lack of access to affordable and safe health care services, comprehensive and evidence-based
information and education, and a lack of autonomy in decision making in their own lives. They also face
especially serious barriers to accessing life-saving contraceptives and family planning services.
We know that complications during pregnancy or childbirth are the leading cause of death for girls aged
15 to 19 in developing countries.1 Unplanned pregnancy rates continue to be high across the world, and
of the 13% of maternal deaths worldwide due to unsafe abortions,2 almost half of those are aged under
19.3 Young people aged 15 to 24 continue to account for nearly 40% of all new HIV infections worldwide.
Marginalized young people, including young people living with HIV, men who have sex with men, girls
and adolescent girls living in poverty, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people
are negatively affected by services, policies, and programs that do not address their needs.
The Women Deliver Youth Working Group calls on delegates at the Women Deliver Conference 2010 to:
• Enable and empower young people locally, nationally, and internationally to lead as agents of
change in policies and programs that affect their lives.
• Implement and continuously develop comprehensive sexuality education programs and
information that are accessible both in and out of school.
• Ensure that young people, especially girls, have autonomy over their lives and can freely decide
if and when to marry and have children.
• Provide health services that are universally accessible, affordable, confidential, non-judgmental,
and rights based with an emphasis on especially reaching those who are most marginalized.
• Provide safe, accessible, affordable, and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care
services. Support and develop meaningful youth participation at all levels of decision making
and create dialogue between decision makers and young people to ensure better understanding
and intergenerational partnerships.

2. • Invest in young people’s health, education, and rights to improve their capacity and opportunity
to contribute to development—a critical contribution to sustainable and effective progress
towards achieving internationally agreed development priorities including the Millennium
Development Goals, the Programme of Action, and Key Actions for Implementation of the
International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the Beijing Platform for
Action.
Signed,
The Youth Working Group*
* Advocates for Youth, Youth Coalition, YouAct, Y-PEER, Maternal Health Task Force at EngenderHealth,
International Planned Parenthood Federation, White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, and Women
Deliver
** To facilitate the participation of young people and to develop strategies for meaningful youth
involvement during the planning and implementation of the Women Deliver conferences, the Youth
Working Group (YWG) was established as a sub-committee of the Women Deliver Advisory Group.
1 UNFPA. No Woman Should Die Giving Life Factsheet.
2 WHO & UNFPA. From abortion to contraception: Family planning and reproductive health in CCEE/NIS.
Copenhagen, 1997.
3 WHO. Unsafe abortion: global and regional estimates of the incidence of unsafe abortion and
associated mortality in 2003. Fifth Edition. Geneva. 2007. p.19.