The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Namibia Country Office and the National Planning Commission (NPC) highlighted the need for greater attention and consultation with young people when developing or executing developmental policies and programmes.
This was said at a joint annual review of the UNFPA/Government Sixth country programme (2019-2023) at Otjiwarongo. The sixth country programme is the framework under which UNFPA supports Namibia.
It focuses on two outcomes of the UNFPA global Strategic Plan; Adolescents and Youth and Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.
The meeting was attended by more than 40 participants from government ministries, implementing partners, civil society organizations, United Nations sister agencies and UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office to review the progress of the implementation of the second year roll-out of the Country Programme.
The programme seeks to contribute to national efforts to harness the demographic dividend through investments in sexual and reproductive health, the elimination of gender-based violence and harmful practices that hinder the potential of youth and adolescents, especially girls and reduction in poverty in Namibia.
The UNFPA country representative, Sheila Roseau said most of the issues that need intervention highly affect the youth and relevant stakeholders should aid where they can and urged the private sector to join on the bandwagon.
“The need to tackle high rates of adolescent pregnancies, gender-based violence and child marriage has come through strongly and so has a call for a high level of cooperation and coordination among partners as well as a need to expand partnerships with the private sector to achieve UNFPA’s three transformative results,” she said.
Roseau recalled that some of the key achievements in 2020 include reaching 13 300 vulnerable women and girls of reproductive age with dignity kits including 125 women and girls living with disability; 9 680 households with information on Covid-19, condoms and sexual and reproductive health; 1 064 marginalised girls with Covid-19 information and guidelines for school developed together with other UN agencies, as well as 20 000 men and boys reached through the What We Men Talk About talk show on intimate partner and sexual violence.
“Undoubtedly, we have made the shift in the mindset and we continue with a re-engineering of our development paradigm, especially given the Covid-19 dynamics that we face in setting our development agenda for the upcoming NDP6. This demonstrates that we understand the importance to leverage efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” added Ndaendomwenyo Sheya, National Development Advisor at the National Planning Commission.
She stated the deliberations revealed moving on the right path of aligning the development partnership to the National Development Plans (NDPs), which are the marching orders towards the successful implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The country programme is aligned to the United Nations Partnership Framework (UNPAF) 2019-2023, the Harambee Prosperity Plan, the NDP5, sector strategic plans and the SDGs. UNFPA remains committed to delivering a world where every pregnancy is wanted, every childbirth is safe and every young person’s potential is fulfilled.
- psiririka@nepc.com.na