Adolescent Prevention

This document discusses the following: general messages about early childhood development, programming messages, nutrition, protection,  early & lifelong learning,  health, parenting, advocacy messages, and key facts about the developing brain. The messages presented in this note were generated from a Neuroscience Symposium organized by UNICEF on April 16, 2014, where 16 leading international scientists from different fields of neuroscience presented their latest evidence on the influences of experience and environment on child brain development.

The 2016 High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS will focus the world’s attention on the importance of a Fast-Track approach to the AIDS response over the next five years. The UNAIDS Fast-Track approach aims to achieve ambitious targets by 2020, including:

1. Fewer than 500 000 people newly infected with HIV
2. Fewer than 500,000 people dying from AIDS-related causes
3. Elimination of HIV-related discrimination

The impact of drugs upon the lives of children and adolescents is an issue that has been largely overlooked to date in much of the debate and documentation on drugs. The purpose of this paper is to identify lessons learned, together with key implications for policy and programmes, arising from UNICEF’s experience to date of addressing children, drugs and HIV. The paper also suggests practical steps that could enhance the impact of UNICEF’s work in this area, within the overall frameworks of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2014-17.

This report guides countries through the process of collecting and reporting sub-national data on adolescents to inform programme planning and implementation efforts. This guidance has been developed with the specific aim of identifying data gaps for adolescents and informing immediate programme planning needs at the sub-national level.