UNESCO Our Rights, Our Lives, Our Future Phase II (2023 - 2027)

The second phase of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) Our Rights, Our Lives, Our, Our Future (O3) programme commenced in July 2023. The initial six months, from July to December, focused on establishing strategic priorities and partnerships for the programmes advancement in the new phase, including the validation and launch of the African Union (AU) Continental Strategy on Education for Health and Well-being for Adolescents and Young People in Africa (EHW Strategy), which marked a significant milestone. Development of the strategy, which offers a cohesive framework for African nations to enhance the health, well-being, and learning outcomes for adolescents and young people (AYP), began in 2022. Moreover, the strategy provides a continent-wide broader framework for the ministerial commitments that 13 Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) and 25 West and Central Africa (WCA) countries have endorsed. While these efforts demonstrate these countries commitment to improving access to comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) and provision of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) information and services for AYP, an opposing headwind to CSE implementation persists in some countries across both regions. Notably, a comprehensive listening and landscape analysis was conducted to explore the current discourse surrounding sexuality education in three ESA countries facing heightened opposition: Ethiopia, Kenya, and Malawi. This analysis provided crucial insights, including the influence and extent of infiltration of anti-CSE actors and their narratives, as well as the personal, political, and bureaucratic factors affecting uptake of CSE programmes by member states. Informed by these findings, a targeted communication strategy will be developed in 2024. In the WCA region, efforts to address opposition to CSE and build support for its implementation centred on further dissemination of the Education Saves Lives campaign content at various regional fora and on digital media platforms. Equipping educators to deliver high-quality CSE remains paramount, and the O3 programme achieved significant progress in this regard, training nearly 70,000 teachers across both the ESA and WCA regions. Furthermore, the programme leveraged innovative digital tools such as Dzidzo PaDen and Hello Ado, alongside established social media platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, to reach millions of AYP. This digital outreach provided crucial information covering a broad range of topics, including sexual and reproductive health (SRH), puberty and menstrual health, gender-based violence (GBV), positive masculinities, and gender norms, as well as academic resources, specifically through the Dzidzo paDen chatbot. In addition, the O3 programme significantly contributed to fostering safer, healthier, and more inclusive learning environments by equipping educators with the necessary skills and knowledge to identify, address, and prevent school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) and supporting the implementation of the Connect with Respect (CwR) programme, which actively promotes respectful relationships and gender equality and supports help-seeking. During the reporting period, UNESCO partnered with the World Health Organization (WHO) to support countries to conduct the Global School Health Survey (GSHS) and Global School Health Policies and Practices Survey (G-SHPPS). The GSHS offers a comprehensive approach to assess the health and well-being of adolescents aged 13-17 years in educational settings, while G-SHPPS aims to collect data on various aspects of school health, including policies related to healthy and safe school environments, health services, nutrition services, health education, and physical education. Lastly, a transformative programme launched in WCA in 2021 empowered 11 countries to substantially improve their education data collection systems. This culminated in 2023 in the first-ever collection and analysis of regional education data, marking another significant milestone.

1) Support an enabling policy and institutional environment for implementation of school health programmes that include CSE and prevention of school violence. 2) Support countries to scale up and strengthen the delivery of accurate, rights-based, gender transformative and good quality teaching and learning on CSE and school violence prevention. 3) Empower AYP and respect their right to make decisions and drive changes in their lives and communities using digital innovations. 4) Promote the creation of safer, inclusive school and community environments with linkages to accessible, youth-friendly SRH services. 5) Strengthen programme implementation through evidence generated from monitoring, evaluation, research and learning.