The Fund will focus public policy on young people and incorporate their issues in national MDG-based development and poverty reduction strategies. To facilitate this, the Fund will support scenario-building exercises that demonstrate what could happen to poverty reduction if social investments in this group are made. The Fund’s comparative advantage will be used at the policy table by: (i) leveraging data on young people for social development policies and poverty reduction plans; (ii) analyzing population structures and advocating a “demographic bonus” argument for making social investments in young people; and (iii) undertaking poverty diagnostics to map social vulnerability profiles of young people based on the understanding that young people are not a homogeneous group

The Fund will take a lead in facilitating the provision of comprehensive, gender sensitive, life skills-based SRH education in schools and community settings. Educational interventions will be delivered through a gender equality promotion and skills approach that will equip girls and boys with the abilities to turn knowledge into practice. The Fund will proactively pursue policy discussions, dialogue, and advocacy on improving the quality of education systems, postponing age at marriage, and retaining girls in schools. It will focus policy on the inclusion of SRH education in school curricula and informal education programmes within the context of sectorwide approaches (SWAps), poverty reduction strategies (PRSs), and education reforms.

The Fund will promote a core package of health and SRH services and commodities that will include, at a minimum, contraception, HIV prevention, and maternal health services. Service provision will be within the overall context of reproductive health commodity security (RHCS), which will address issues of access and affordability of RH commodities. The Fund will support service delivery models within the national programme context, not as isolated projects. Scaling-up youth- and adolescent-friendly health/SRH services as a fair share for socio-economically disadvantaged groups will be linked with efforts for promoting universal access to HIV prevention, care, treatment, and support. The Fund will combine facility-based service delivery with multiple channels (for example, schools and social marketing programmes), and community outreach activities. For social services, the Fund will network with NGOs, community-based organizations, and other sectors. Policy dialogue will focus on promoting and costing an essential package of services for young people, targeting in particular those who are out of reach, especially married and unmarried girls.

The Fund will pay special attention to working “with” young people through youth-adult partnerships. It will identify institutional mechanisms for incorporating young people’s input into policy and programming processes (including planning, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation). It will invest in capacity building and leadership skills of young people to make them advocates for their own rights and development issues. It will promote peer educators as polyvalent agents for transmitting safe SRH messages, linking peers with services, and allying with young people’s networks and coalitions. The Fund will tap into the dynamism of youth movements and their communication networks for advocacy and action on issues of concern, such as, HIV/AIDS and age at marriage.

The Four Keys can be visualized as a pyramid (see below). At the apex is the Key on Policy, Population and Poverty. The base of the pyramid is comprised of the two Keys of SRH Education and Services. Youth Participation is core to all of the Keys. The two way arrows indicate that each Key feeds into and reinforces the other.