UK announces major investments in future of African youth through education and voluntary family planning

UK aid will help millions more young people across Africa to access vital family planning services, receive a quality education and help them get better-paid jobs, it was announced as the Prime Minister was in Kenya on 30 August 2018.

This will empower young people to have better control of their health and futures, allowing them to choose whether to have children and when, while tackling inequality and improving youth education and employment for a strong and prosperous continent.

New UK aid programmes through the Department for International Development will:

• support up to 5,000 girls to start or get back into school for a brighter future – including girls who have dropped out due to early marriage or motherhood, or being the victim of gender-based violence – through UK aid’s new Leave No Girl Behind programme in Kenya;
• help hundreds of thousands more Kenyans access to safe, voluntary modern contraception over the next five years – particularly young people who want but currently struggle to access family planning services;
• help to create much needed, high-quality jobs for young Kenyans by providing advice and grants to innovative start-ups or technology ventures that have most potential to create high numbers of jobs through the new Kenya Catalytic Jobs Fund;
• launch the Women’s Integrated Sexual Health (WISH) programme that will ensure six million couples can use voluntary contraception every year of the programme, and prevent the deaths of around 20 women every day; and
• launch a global Skills for Prosperity programme, including major investment to help young Africans access skills training and vocational courses focused on getting them into better paid, future-proof jobs in industries struggling with skills gaps.

UK’s new and distinctive offer to work alongside, invest in and partner with African nations, will be bringing in more specialist health advisers to work with African governments and civil societies to enable women and girls to access the voluntary family planning that is right for them.

Original source: DFID
Published on 30 August 2018