Equity and inclusion in urban youth interventions: lessons from three continents
Source: Institute of Development Studies
Young people’s urban lives are often riddled with inequalities and everyday obstacles inhibiting their full societal participation, to negatively affect their health and wellbeing. Findings from a study in intermediary cities in six countries show that programming interventions that support adolescents contain much tacit knowledge in on how inequity and exclusion challenges may be overcome, that is worth sharing. Yet, these initiatives also face and must strategically respond.
Today, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion has become a dirty word in some political circles. US presidential action ostensively seeking to curtail ‘illegal and immoral discrimination’ has involved the immediate termination of federal government policies, programs, and activities towards advancing equity and inclusion. Simultaneously, a sledgehammer has been put to USAID, creating havoc in countless international development projects globally, and causing real, immediate and enduring harm to people’s livelihoods, lives and health, with children and adolescents being amongst those hardest hit.
This hostility towards equity and inclusion stands in sharp contrast to what young people and adults supporting them in health and wellbeing projects in intermediary cities in Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Senegal and Vietnam have recently told us.
Read here the full article published by the Institute of Development Studies on 3 April 2025.
Image by HCA-II programme and Alza Tu Voz project
Young people’s urban lives are often riddled with inequalities and everyday obstacles inhibiting their full societal participation, to negatively affect their health and wellbeing. Findings from a study in intermediary cities in six countries show that programming interventions that support adolescents contain much tacit knowledge in on how inequity and exclusion challenges may be overcome, that is worth sharing. Yet, these initiatives also face and must strategically respond.
Today, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion has become a dirty word in some political circles. US presidential action ostensively seeking to curtail ‘illegal and immoral discrimination’ has involved the immediate termination of federal government policies, programs, and activities towards advancing equity and inclusion. Simultaneously, a sledgehammer has been put to USAID, creating havoc in countless international development projects globally, and causing real, immediate and enduring harm to people’s livelihoods, lives and health, with children and adolescents being amongst those hardest hit.
This hostility towards equity and inclusion stands in sharp contrast to what young people and adults supporting them in health and wellbeing projects in intermediary cities in Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, India, Senegal and Vietnam have recently told us.
Read here the full article published by the Institute of Development Studies on 3 April 2025.
Image by HCA-II programme and Alza Tu Voz project