A tweet and article from the Star Kenya claimed that at the Generation Equality Forum held in Paris, the World Health Organization committed to delivering comprehensive sexual education outside school settings, improving access to quality and rights-based family planning in 14 middle-income countries, including Kenya.
The Generation Equality Forum is a global gathering for gender equality, convened by UN Women and co-chaired by France and Mexico, in partnership with civil society and youth. The Forum in Paris, held 30 June – 2 July, engaged nearly 50,000 people to generate action for the rapid advancement of gender justice.
The Forum also launched a 5-year action journey to achieve irreversible progress towards gender equality, founded on a series of concrete, ambitious and transformative actions, including $40 billion in financial commitments.
The World Health Organization announced several commitments to drive change for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in all their diversity at the forum from their press statement.
Amongst their commitments is “investing in the evidence base for sexual and reproductive health and rights, including delivering comprehensive sexuality education outside school settings; improving access to quality and rights-based family planning in 14 middle-income countries.”
Based on the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) report from their official website, Kenya is NOT among the 14 countries set to benefit from the program on comprehensive sexuality education outside school settings.
However, according to UNFPA, Kenya will benefit from several other related commitments around gender equality, sexual and reproductive health education, and support for women and Feminist-led organizations.
“The objective is to increase delivery of comprehensive and age-responsive information and education and to increase the availability, accessibility and acceptability of adolescent-friendly comprehensive, quality and timely services for in and out of school adolescents and youth, especially girls and marginalized youth, to enable and empower their free and informed decisions and choices about their sexuality and reproductive lives; to protect themselves from unintended pregnancies; from all forms of gender-based violence and harmful practices, and from sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS,” part of UNFPA press statement reads.
A press release by the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency UNFPA and Forbes also highlights several commitments and the countries involved:
Pamoja FM has looked into the claim “Kenya among countries set to benefit from the WHO sex education investment” and finds it to be ‘PARTIALLY TRUE.’
This story was produced by Pamoja FM in partnership with Code for Africa, Kenya Community Media Network, and the Catholic Media Council with support from the German Cooperation as a part of the Our County Our Responsibility project.
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