Uganda Youth and Adolescents Health Forum, also known as UYAHF is a youth-led and youth-serving grass-root organization implementing an advocacy project under a platform known as the Right here Right Now platform (RHRN). The project/platform among others prioritizes the National Adolescent Health Policy (ADH) as one of the policies to be reviewed and implemented by 2020. Within the national and international context, the Ministry of Health and partners supported a systematic review of the adolescent health policy to include emerging areas and new evidence. This has continued to result in an updated framework on which to streamline and integrate efforts for the development and implementation of programs and health services aimed at protecting the health, wellbeing, and development of adolescents in the country.
The National Adolescents Health Policy will guide how to solve the challenges that adolescents and young people face in their stages of development. The policy is currently under review, to make it better and address the new challenges that have emerged since its development. As part of the consultative process and road map, UYAHF and Right here Right now, (RHRN) acknowledge the importance and contribution of the adolescents and young people whose lives are impacted on by this policy and it’s upon this that several engagements and meetings with various stakeholders that embrace adolescent health programming have been taking place during the 5 years of the RHRN project (2016-2020) to collect views on what they would like to see in the revised and approved policy, discuss and share ideas on how best we can have cabinet approve the policy, develop a joint advocacy action plan for influencing the adoption and approval of the policy and also have a unified voice on the next steps to take to have the policy signed. Henceforth ensure that the policy is reviewed and implemented by the end of the project (2020).
It is on the above background that the platform members came together (2nd to 4th September) at KHotels in Entebbe to assess the impact of the project for the 5 years, for example looking at how far the policies that were targeted to be approved and implemented have gone, the achievements that the platform has seen and is proud of, discussing of the sustainability plan on how what the platform members have achieved could continue to happen even when the project has ceased, as well as re-programming the project in a way that members would harmonize the activities left per individual member organization and implement together as a platform so that the goal for the platform is achieved by the end of November 2020.