A platform hosted by the Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN), the Nigeria Meaningful Adolescent and Youth Engagement (Naija MAYE), has enjoined winners of yesterday’s elections to prioritise the health and development needs of young people.
The organisation made the call yesterday in Abuja during the launch of its “Youth Health and Development Agenda”.
The agenda is a collection of advocacy points critical to health and development needs of young people along seven key areas of development: health, education, economic empowerment, climate change, human rights, transparency and inclusion.
Chairman of the group, Olympus Ade-Banjo, in an open letter to all political parties and candidates across Nigeria, said the demands of the young people in the agenda included to make the health budget 15 per cent of the national budget, recognise adolescents and youth as part of the vulnerable population for social health insurance, reduce the age of access to HIV testing to 14, expand basic education from nine to 12 years and pass the Students Bill of Rights.
Others are overhauling tertiary education curriculum, create meaningful occupational counselling structures, providing micro-finance facilities to young SMEs, institutionalising a robust labour register at all levels of governance, and ensuring full implementation of the anti-torture and police reform act.
