CSOs AND YOUTH

Across GFF partner countries, CSOs and youth advocates promote accountability and ensure that women, children and adolescents in hard-to-reach communities are not left out.

Civil society organizations (CSOs) and youth are central to the GFF’s work to promote equity and ensure the voices and needs of the women, children and adolescents are positioned at the heart of the country-led process to strengthen health systems. Twenty-nine out of 36 GFF partner countries have CSO and youth representation in their country platforms. At the global level, CSO representation is part of the GFF Investors Group helping to shape the GFF’s strategic direction and strengthen its impact.

Since its inception in 2015, the GFF has provided grants and technical assistance to strengthen CSO and youth engagement in country platforms. As part of its new CSO and Youth Engagement Strategy, the GFF has partnered with the non-governmental organization PAI through a World Bank project (supported by $5 million GFF grant) to further strengthen CSO and youth engagement in GFF partner countries. Read press release and access CSO resources.

"With the GFF there is an opportunity to engage young people through intergenerational partnership to bring about change. The GFF has created a lot of platforms so that youth can be engaged. It has a crucial role to play to reinforce and build frameworks to enable more accessibility for young people." — Mariama Abdou Gado, Medical Student and Youth Advocate, Niger

Driving stronger advocacy and accountability for results

In Senegal, advocates engaged in the first youth-led roundtable on health financing, organized by the GFF, which connected partners from across Dakar’s health and nutrition sectors to agree on a common road map for funding sexual and reproductive health services for youth.
In Mali, the Conseil Consultatif National des Enfants et Jeunes du Mali — a youth-led organization — coordinated with religious leaders to successfully advocate for improved access for youth-specific sexual and reproductive health services.
In Kenya, the Organization for African Youth generated evidence for the Ministry of Health on the importance of adolescents’ access to health services.
In Cote d’Ivoire, Niger and Uganda CSOs and youth advocates worked with communities to ensure essential health services for women and girls were protected amid COVID-19. Listen to their perspectives: Cote d’Ivoire Video | Uganda Video | Niger Video

Strengthening CSOs to advocate for more health resources

Together with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the GFF financed the launch of the Joint Learning Agenda on Health Financing and Universal Health Coverage (JLA) to strengthen CSOs in Sub-Saharan Africa on grassroot advocacy. This will help increase domestic resources for health as well as improving accountability and transparency.

Learn more about the JLA Program