While youth confidence in vaccine development against COVID-19 varies across countries with different income-levels, the general trend in the global sample of youth indicated high levels of confidence, with only 8% of youth expressing disagreement with the statement that they are confident in sanitary measures to respond, manage and address the COVID-19 pandemic.
This paper draws on several months of national, regional, and continental youth consultations hosted by the African Union Office of the Youth Envoy (OYE) in collaboration with Africa CDC. These include the virtual youth consultations held from 23rd March 2020 to 11 June 2020; as well as focus group consultations carried out by member networks of the African Youth Front. The aim of these consultations were to collect opinions and recommendations from youth leaders, with a view to inform policy briefs that were shared with Africa CDC.
COVID-19 is exposing and exacerbating the existing inequalities that put girls at increased risk of gender-based violence (GBV). Adolescent girls, particularly girls who are married, girls with disabilities and those living in humanitarian contexts face heightened risks, and often fall between services designed for adults and children. This policy brief includes program examples and makes concrete recommendations for UN actors, donors, national governments, humanitarian actors, and the media to ensure that risk factors for gender-based violence are prevented, mitigated against, and responded to as an urgent priority through COVID-19 to recovery.
The increase in unemployment as a result of COVID-19 is expected to exceed the rise in rates of unemployment in the aftermath of the 2009 global financial crisis. Based on the 2009 experience, without targeted policy intervention, it is likely that youth will again be disproportionately affected by a global recession, with a higher percentage of young people being unemployed compared to adults, and a slower uptake of employment by young people during the recovery. In light of the threat to the livelihoods of many youth, it is crucial that measures to ease the financial impacts on households are comprehensive and sufficient to bridge the gap resulting from loss of earnings
