A recent survey in low- and middle-income countries have indicated that, about 3000 young people are newly infected with HIV daily?
This was revealed when youth leaders from around the world recently presented a set of youth-defined recommendations that will guide the UNAIDS Secretariat’s work on HIV and young people through 2015.
According to the report, globally, an estimated five million young people (15-24 years of age) are living with HIV and through CrowdOutAIDS, young people proposed six key recommendations for the UNAIDS Secretariat.
Presenting the recommendations to UNAIDS a young Nigerian activist Gabriel Adeyemo stated that the recommendations include strengthening young people’s skills for effective leadership at all levels of the AIDS response, ensuring the full participation of youth in the AIDS response at country, regional, and global levels, improving young people’s access to HIV-related information.
Others included diversifying and strengthening strategic networks between the UNAIDS Secretariat, youth, and other key players, Increasing the UNAIDS Secretariat’s outreach to both formal and informal networks of young people; and Increasing young people’s access to financial support.
The recommendations resulted from CrowdOutAIDS, an innovative youth-led policy project initiated by UNAIDS. Leveraging crowdsourcing technology and new media tools, the five-month project enabled young people to fully participate in the development of strategic recommendations for the UNAIDS Secretariat’s youth agenda.
Adeyemo said CrowdOutAIDS is a ‘high level meeting for’ young people which brings about decision-making to the grassroots, to the skilled and unskilled, learned and unlearned, rich and poor, to contribute to an issue that affects all our lives: HIV.
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