We Lead

We Lead is a daring programme that will improve the lives of young women across the world.

Well, that sounds quite ambitious.

Yet ambition is exactly what we need, when it comes to our goal of improving the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of every young woman by 2030.

World leaders promised to achieve this in the Global Goals – and we will hold them to account.

We Lead consortium and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs will work in nine countries across Africa, Central America and the MENA region to promote the universal fulfilment of SRH-R; by supporting women to claim their sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Who are the rightsholders?

Meet the We Lead CoAFs

We Lead will work with young women disproportionally affected by discrimination and gender-based violence.

Duty-bearers ignore their rights, healthcare workers mistreat them, and adult family members decide their sexuality and access to information and services. They belong to the ones most left behind and hardest to reach: young women and adolescent girls (15-30 years) who self-identify as lesbian, bisexual, trans or intersex (LBTI), live with HIV or disabilities, or are affected by displacement.

We call these women rightsholders, because that is what they are: holders of rights. We will pay special attention to young women at the intersection of multiple stigmatised identities, drawing among others on the learnings of inspiring programs.

Achieving universal access to SRH care for all remains a distant reality for millions:

4,900

young women aged 15–24 years become infected with HIV every week

percent of all new HIV infections in 2021 happened among women and girls

training sessions in Youth Led Research (YLR), Youth leadership, Youth Led Accountability and Meaningful Youth Engagement

310

different rightsholders across the 9 countries.

virtual and 6 physical leadership labs provided safe, inclusive and peer led spaces

3,762

youth civil society members connected to share their leadership skills and tools through interactive, online and offline sessions.

Rights Holders to participate in global conferences like Commission on Population and Development CPD56, Women Deliver CSW 66 and 67, Women Deliver.

% of CoA organizations engaged in lobby and advocacy at the local level, 57% at the regional/provincial level, and 64% at the national level.

% increase in credibility and sustainability from 55.36%

% increase in resilience and adaptive capability from 71.4%. and inclusive, supportive leadership by young women rights-holders from 77.4% to 84.6%.

Young people outnumber adults in many countries, but it is the latter who decide young women’s fate. It’s time for Governments to step up and guarantee Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights for all.

Who are we working with?

Meet the We Lead Steering Committee

We work with four different and overlapping rightsholder groups who are the most marginalised when it comes to SRHR

Living with HIV
Identifying as lesbian, bisexual, trans or intersex,
With a disability
Affected by displacement

Youth Leadership:

“Nothing about us, without us” is our leading principle. We Lead is convinced that real and lasting change is only possible if the young women we aim to support, can genuinely take ownership of our programme.

The program deliberately seeks to gradually shift the power into the hands of the holders of rights, and enable them to effectively lobby and advocate for their SRH-R themselves.

This is what makes our consortium and our programme unique; we bring the principles of local ownership, gender equality and inclusion, and youth leadership into practice.

Our geographic reach.

201

rights holders reached with training on Youth Led research, Youth-led Accountability and MYE.

Leadership labs organised – reaching 117 organisations.

The consortium will work in nine countries in Africa (Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Uganda, and Mozambique), Central America (Guatemala and Honduras) and the Middle East (Lebanon and Jordan).

Read Nour Nahhas’ Interview on our blog

Nour Nahhas is a 26-year-old Community of Action Facilitator for the We Lead Program in Lebanon. We caught up with Nour to talk about We Lead and her work in Lebanon.

Read

Sexual health and rights advocacy in the face of COVID19 report

In this research the We Lead team listened to rightsholders in Lebanon, Guatemala, Mozambique, Uganda and Nigeria on how CSO’s adapted to meaningfully provide SRH-R services to young women whilst during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the report:

Arabic

English

French

Portuguese

Reports

In 2023, Restless Development continued to harness the power of young women rightsholders to claim for their Sexual Reproductive Health and Rights across
Africa, Middle East/North Africa (MENA),and Latin America (LATAM).

READ

Young people outnumber adults in our program countries, yet adults decide about their sexuality and access to SRH-R information and services; in particular when they are young women. The impact is disastrous. For example, every year at least 10 million unwanted pregnancies among girls aged 15-19 occur in the
developing world, leading to 5.7 million abortions, the majority of which are unsafe.In addition to their lack of agency and access to SRH-R services.

READ

We Lead is not at the UN Commission on Population and Development

Read our statement

The Commission on Population and Development (CPD57) started on Monday 29 April in New York. Although this historic event marks the 30th anniversary of the Cairo Programme of Action, and the We Lead partnership actively participated in ICPD30 processes, our organizations will not attend.