The Adolescent Youth Sexual Reproductive Health Learning Exchange Trip, held in July 2015 and supported by the USAID-funded Healthy Families II Project, brought key Angolan stakeholders to visit their counterparts in Ethiopia. The visit focused on family planning and contraceptive commodities.
The Angolan delegation consisted of seven participants: two from the National Directorate of Public Health (Direcção Nacional de Saúde Publica); two from the Bureau of Public Health of Luanda (Gabinete Provincial de Saúde Pública de Luanda); one from Centro de Apoio aos Jovens, an Angolan youth NGO; one from the Ministry of Youth and Sports; and one from Pathfinder.
Ethiopia’s implementation of its National Adolescent Youth Reproductive Health Strategy provided another example for the Angolan representatives of how an adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health strategy has been designed, drafted, and implemented in sub-Saharan Africa. This Learning Exchange Trip also provided opportunities to learn about commodities management system, how a national gender strategy is being applied in Ethiopia, and the experience of implementing an mHealth project.
The Learning Exchange group was led by Worknesh Kereta, technical advisor for adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health for Pathfinder Ethiopia, and ran from July 6-10 2015. “[It] was a very wise Angolan initiative to invest in young people’s sexual reproductive health in Angola, because investing in young people pays off,” said Kereta.
