UNICEF Headquarters has collaborated with country offices in all regions to collect a set of case descriptions of projects designed to work with and for adolescents. The descriptions include details on project background, objectives, activities, and the role of adolescent boys and girls in project work. They also include project-specific challenges, lessons learned, and program resources that might be shared with UNICEF or other related programs. The experiences captured in this document offer a glimpse of the work in the area of adolescent development and participation, which is recognized as a vital crosscutting component of UNICEF’s planned interventions in all the organizational priorities within the Medium-Term Strategic Plan, 2002-2005. This is one of the first documents attempting to capture programmes with and for adolescents with a focus on participation.
Holistically, through a focus on the common elements in many of the case descriptions, the experiences offered here give insights to the challenges, lessons learned and the need for making strategic choices in realizing the development and participation rights of adolescents. In particular, the collective analysis of these case descriptions defines the critical importance of the participation of adolescents themselves is a vital element to the success of the interventions. The need to work with families, parents and communities to create a supporting environment through interventions which ensure sustainability and impact is another lesson learned. Finally, the case studies also highlight the importance of making strategic choices in the identification of appropriate partners.
©UNICEF
