There are 1.2 billion young people in the world today entering their reproductive years. As Nomi Fuchs-Montgomery says, their power drives public health impact.
Still, two in five adolescent girls aged 15-19 across developing countries will experience an unintended pregnancy. More than half of these will end in abortion.
Solving this pervading gap requires that the public health community and others recalibrate how it operates, says Fuchs-Montgomery, the Deputy Director for Evidence and Innovation at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The thread, she suggests, lies in establishing transparency—in how we work, broadening with whom we work, how we succeed and how we fail.
Nomi shares what it will take to design for an adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) revolution.
This interview first ran in PSI’s Impact Magazine No. 23. To read the full issue, click here.
Adolescents 360 (A360) is a four-and-a-half year initiative co-funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF). The project is led by Population Services International (PSI) together with IDEO.org, University of California at Berkeley Center on the Developing Adolescent, the Society for Family Health Nigeria, and Triggerise. The project is being delivered in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania, in partnership with local governments, local organizations, and local technology and marketing firms. In Tanzania, A360 is building on an investment and talent from philanthropist and design thinker Pam Scott.