As part of its technical assistance efforts to strengthen knowledge exchange on program experiences and best practices and applications to strengthen programs, Knowledge SUCCESS supports FP2030’s guiding principle of country-led partnerships with shared learning and accountability.
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A promising partnership was initiated and nurtured by the Knowledge SUCCESS Team in the East Africa Region following its first knowledge management intervention with Anglophone Youth Focal Points during the Youth Pre-Conference sessions at the Amref Health Africa -hosted Pan-African Africa Health Agenda International Conference (AHAIC) in Kigali, Rwanda, in 2023. During this event, 10 youth focal points were introduced to key knowledge management principles. Building on this foundation, a focused effort was made to assess this subgroup’s institutional structure and KM needs within the FP2030 framework. Together with the ESA Youth Engagement Manager, it was determined that strengthening the youth’s capacity to exercise agency within the focal point structure was critical to fulfilling their mandate. Through consultations with the ESA Hub, the Learning Circles Approach was identified as a KM solution, designed to accommodate the varying levels of maturity among the youth focal points and the diverse institutional, policy, cultural, and social contexts they operate in, fostering knowledge sharing, learning, and collaborative solutions. In January 2024, a collaboration of efforts between the East and Southern Africa (ESA) and North, West and Central Africa (NWCA) Hubs was initiated to deliver this intervention amongst the FP2030 Youth Focal Points in Africa. Knowledge SUCCESS through the East Africa and West Africa Regional teams designed and implemented a series of hybrid peer-to-peer learning sessions that engaged 50 youth focal points and young leaders from Africa in candid conversations on “institutionalizing adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health programs.”
ज्ञान सफलता के शिक्षण मंडल is a participatory, peer-to-peer learning program for global health professionals, enabling participants to discuss and share key success factors and challenges in priority areas of program implementation such as family planning and reproductive health (FP/RH) and adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH).
The hybrid Learning Circles series consisted of:
These sessions provided a platform for sharing practical experiences, successes, challenges, and solutions, enabling participants to implement effective strategies within their respective organizations, networks, platforms, and countries.
Participants used knowledge exchange techniques such as “प्रशंसात्मक पूछताछ" और "1-2-4-All” to identify positive points of their programs and ways of amplifying these successful strategies at local and regional levels, including the following examples:
Positive Experiences | सफलता कारक |
Synergy of action with all youth organizations in Senegal, where each organization is recognized in a field of intervention related to AYSRH | Diversity of organizations in terms of documentation, implementation, and evaluation of activities |
Popularizing knowledge even in the most remote areas of Cameroon’s eastern region. |
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Peer educator clubs in secondary schools in the Democratic Republic of Congo | Training school peer educators through open days and taboo-free exchanges between young people |
Involving young people in the Youth Connect project | Social networks reach out to different social classes and a greater number of people, even in the most remote areas |
Advocacy for capacity building of youth organizations in SRHR. | Youth synergy, evidence-based arguments |
Budget line item for the purchase of contraceptive products added in 2021/2022 for the first time | It wasn’t easy given the context where the government operates with its own funds and the priority was security, but with diplomacy and teamwork this project was a success right up to its disbursement. |
Meaningful youth involvement in the Safe Motherhood Conference through multi-stakeholder involvement | Youth-led organizations played a role in mobilizing resources so many youth could participate. |
Project focused on improving health and wellbeing of adolescents in Liberia | It was a collaboration of seven youth-led organizations, young people, and national policy makers and was able to recruit youth mobilizers to engage adolescents |
Establishment of a Community Score Card in rural Rwanda where there was meaningful and inclusive youth participation in developing the score card | Creation of youth champions and youth surveys, in addition to focus group discussions |
Co-developed and co-facilitated the launch of an adolescent and sexual and reproductive health toolkit in humanitarian settings by youth and other health stakeholders to be used by youth-led organizations in Sudan and DRC | Worked with young people in and out of humanitarian settings by working through youth-led organizations and coalitions |
National Youth and Adolescent Family Planning Conference in Freetown, Sierra Leone that involved adolescent and youth from 16 districts and Government, NGOs, CSOs, and media | Thorough consultative process that was inclusive and youth-led – from planning to coordination |
Knowledge SUCCESS and FP2030 then led participants through a knowledge management exercise called “ट्रोइका परामर्श.” To begin, participants identified a challenge they faced from their personal experience in their respective programs and then held a three-way consultation to obtain solutions from their counterparts.
Some examples of difficulties encountered by participants and solutions proposed by other group members include:
चुनौतियों | Proposed Solutions |
हमारी actions are much more urban-based, which means that people in non urban communities have no access to services or information. | We need to provide a framework for exchanges between structures and all stakeholders. It’s important to share experiences and orient interventions in a diversified way. |
Lack of संचार साथ colleagues from others projects and organizations | Take the first step and reach out to other leaders, inviting them to your workshops and reminding them that you’re defending the same cause. Highlight the importance of solidarity, with fluid communication tailored to a certain target. |
The difficulties encountered are at the level of the population, especially in the northern part of Cameroon, who consider reproductive health to be a taboo subject, and are therefore reluctant to talk to us leaders. Also, people with disabilities (including visual, hearing, or mobility disabilities) have problems understanding the project leaders.. |
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The politicizing of young people and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) initiatives greatly affects how its perceived and accepted in communities in Ghana |
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Enrolling out-of-school girls back to the school from marginalized communities in Nigeria | Connect them to champions within the community who have succeeded and can motivate them |
All participants drafted commitment statements on a specific action they plan to take to advance AYSRH programs. The commitments spanned various themes, including:
Finally, participants discussed how to apply the lessons learned from the implementation of their project in their respective countries to the challenges likely to be encountered in future FP/RH programs. During the session, participants were invited to imagine such a scenario:
“Your country’s AYSRH program has evolved over time to become a model of the key elements of successful AYSRH programs. Other countries are looking to you to learn how your AYSRH program works so they can replicate it or adapt it to their own context.”
According to the participants, the following factors are critical to ensuring this spectacular success:
From East to West Africa, all together: a great learning opportunity from South to South, and a step towards overcoming the language barrier.
This particular Learning Circles cohort was unique. While Knowledge SUCCESS typically convenes cohorts among program practitioners working in the same region, this cohort was an inter-regional one, comprising participants from East, West, and Central Africa. What was even more unique was that by engaging young focal points and young people committed to FP/RH in the countries covered by FP 2030’s various African hubs, we did great south to south learning and broke down language barriers and also gave young people an opportunity to bring their different knowledge to the table, according to their different contexts.
There were a few bumps in the road, but we met the challenge! We had bilingual facilitators who spoke in both French and English, provided various tools and presentations in both French and English, and also made use of interpretation services for some sessions. These are all examples of significant elements to plan for and prioritize when organizing knowledge exchanges sessions and should be placed at the heart of taking equity into account in knowledge management.
The young participants welcomed our equitable Learning Circles approach, who spoke of the importance of linguistic cross-fertilization.
“Beyond the sessions, it’s a good experience for us to be together and to be able to dialogue. We’ve all made an effort to understand each other. And it’s also a good opportunity to practice the language.”
One thing is certain for these young people: this is the kind of experience to be repeated, with the aim of always improving a little more.
Thanks to Learning Circles, these groups of young FP/RH leaders from African countries were able to increase their knowledge and understanding of FP/RH and AYSRH issues, network and build relationships with colleagues facing similar challenges, and generate new ideas and practical solutions to improve the implementation of their programs. The new knowledge management tools and techniques used in this training will be useful in their organizations and day-to-day work, and they will be able to implement these in further knowledge sharing and exchange sessions with their peers.