Ahead of the Global Forum on Adolescent, Plan International has called on the government to prioritize access to education and we’ll being of adolescents in the country.

The Advocacy and Youth Program Officer, Plan International, Jonathan Abakpa while speaking at a SDG review workshop for adolescent yesterday in Abuja, lamented that in Nigeria, education and health are not a right but a privilege and due to high cost of accessing these basic amenities, many young people are unable to access it, which in turns affects their development.

He pointed out that in the global South, there was already a high cost of education and education and health falls within the goals of the SDG.

Abakpa said: “We have realized that about 1.8billion people in the world who fall between the age bracket of 10-19 are adolescent. With this huge figure, it is important to prioritize issues relating to the adolescent not just by the governments but also international forum.”

He stressed the need for government to prioritize the issue of access to health and the personal development of the adolescent, saying that they have found out that young people do not have access to sectors that improve their health and their personal development.

According to Abakpa, the review meeting is aimed at creating a safe space for the young people, evaluate the SDG goals in Nigeria, to see the gaps and provide solutions, particularly with the preparation of the global forum for adolescent coming up in October

Abakpa further said their aim was to amplify the voices of the Nigeria adolescent at the global forum and beyond that, we are looking at how it would be replicated on the global stage, saying the event was to galvanize their thoughts towards the SDG forum coming up in New York in September.

“Many countries will be presenting their views, there so we want young people in Nigeria to analyze the goals and how it affects them. Also at the African union, we intend to use this deliberation to feed into the meeting that will be held in Lusaka by August 14.

He said their overall goal was to empower the adolescent and ensure their voices are amplified such that issues affecting their well-being, development and health were prioritized.

Advocacy officer of Education and Vaccine, Dogo Philip, noted that in the build-up to the global forum on adolescent, their organization carried out a surveys tagged, “What Young People Want Initiative” to gather the perspectives of young people in the country and they found out that most of their demands was streamlined around access to good health, proper education facilities in schools, sexual reproductive services.

He said: “From this review we did it is obvious that the gaps in the country are not far from access to health, education and youth employment.”

He stated that when it comes to adolescent well-being, investment and government policies are not sufficient, so the government should step up implementation of the adolescent health development policy adding government should provide budgetary allocation to implement the policy.

“For instance, they need to look into how many clinics are offering mental health services or youth-friendly reproductive services to young people adding that when it comes to funding basic education, how many schools are actually free when it comes to young people, how are they able to curtail the hidden charges that is pushing girls away from school”, he stated.