A platform hosted by the Africa Health Budget Network (AHBN), the Nigeria Meaningful Adolescent and Youth Engagement (Naija MAYE), has called on the winners of the presidential elections to prioritize the health and development needs of young people.
The civil society organisations (CSOs) made the call on Monday in Abuja during the launch of their ‘Youth Health and Development Agenda’.
Science Nigeria reports that the agenda is a collection of advocacy points critical to the health and development needs of young people across seven key areas of development: health, education, economic empowerment, climate change, human rights, transparency, and inclusion.
The chairman of the group, Mr. Olympus Ade-Banjo, said that their demand in the agenda is for the winner to ensure a health budget of 15 per cent of the national budget and to recognize adolescents and youth as part of the vulnerable population for social health insurance.
Ade-Banjo also said that the winner should 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, he said, include overhauling tertiary education curriculum, creating meaningful occupational counselling structures, providing micro-finance facilities to young SMEs, institutionalising a robust labour register at all levels of governance, and ensuring the full implementation of the anti-torture and police reform act.
