Health should be seen as an investment and not an expenditure. More specifically, investment in adolescent and young people’s health is one of the smartest things any government would do. As we all know, Adolescence is the passage from childhood to adulthood and it offers the opportunity to consolidate earlier health investments in the childhood years and to lay a critical foundation for a healthy adulthood. Investments in adolescent health and wellbeing have a life cycle impact– benefits to adolescents in their current phase of life, benefits in terms of their future adult life, as well as benefits for the next generation of children to whom the adolescents would give birth to.
Adolescents and young people are in need of mental health care services, contextual sexual and reproductive health care services, Non-Communicable Disease treatment and cure, Injuries to mention a few. The government of Nigeria at all levels needs to prioritize this group of people in order not to leave anyone behind.
To this end, Gem Hub Initiative was represented during the scorecard development workshop organized and supported by Options, E4A in Nigeria. where representatives of various youth-led and youth-focused organizations were selected, trained, and supported technically. One of the focuses of the workshop was to equip young people with budget monitoring and advocacy skills.
This effort was also supported by African Health Budget Network who trained young people how to identify health funding for adolescents and young people in the budget.
Basically, the government needs to start this Adolescent prioritization from planning (which will be reflected in the National Health Management Information System Tools) to the provision of youth-friendly Health care services, and the creation/implementation of policies and laws that promote Adolescent and young people’s health needs.
