The Sustainable Development Goals came under intense scrutiny as the UN youth envoy Jayathma Wickramanayake rounded off the second day of her visit to Nigeria.
Dr Diane Keita, Country Representative , UN Population fund said the UN system in Nigeria will collaborate with young people on the global agenda of the SDGs.
She spoke during timeout at the Civic Innovation Hub where envoy and youths spokesperson Jayathma Wickramanayake met with young people in Abuja.
“We will be coming to you, for you to tell us how do we make the global agenda works,” said Keita.
“We will also come to you for you tell us how to make the donor agencies in the country help the youth as new generation to achieve their goals,’’ she said.
The hub leverages technology to proffer solutions.
Wickramanayake said young people have revalidated the points she has been making in the past few months of her appointment as UN Youth Envoy.
Among solutions on display was an initiative to address barriers young people face in accessing sexual and reproductive health services.
“Over the years we find that a lot of adolescents make poor or wrong health decisions due to lack of information and we are aware of the clichés that say knowledge is power,” said Osage Itamah, project coordinator at Education as a Vaccine.
“At this instance, the knowledge applied is the power,’’ he said.
More than 50,000 Nigerian girls die due to reproductive health complications and a lack of information.
“The statistics also show that the early marriage prevalence in Nigeria was more in northern part of Nigeria than other part of the country,” he said.
