IPPF convened a consultative meeting to build shared understanding of girls’ and young women’s pregnancy-related issues. The aim was to explore the role of positive approaches to sexuality in programmes and policies related to girls and young women.

The meeting was a component of IPPF’s Girls Decide initiative, which aims to ensure that girls’ and young women’s sexuality and pregnancy-related issues are adequately addressed by leaders and service providers.

The Girls Decide consultative meeting brought together approximately 40 leaders in the field of youth sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), from civil society, UN agencies, private foundations, governments and youth networks.

Several best practices and recommendations emerged from the meeting:

- Improve indicators for measuring the effectiveness and impact of rights-based programmes, particularly to assess the non-health outcomes of SRHR programmes and policies
- Develop and disseminate tools that help to assess the evolving capacities of young people for SRH service provision
- Gather evidence on the effectiveness of interventions for families to improve girls’ and young women’s SRHR
- Expand networks to engage more consistently and meaningfully with women’s groups, youth-led groups, groups of people living with HIV, LGBTQ groups and indigenous groups
- Strengthen alliances with academic institutions

Consultative meeting report