The Sexual and Reproductive Health of Young Adolescents in Developing Countries: Reviewing the evidence, identifying research gaps, and moving the agenda

The 2010 technical consultation hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) brought together a group of experts from a diverse range of institutions and organizations to identify and help fill the gaps in research, programming and policy-making for girls and boys aged 10-14 years in developing countries. Former policy and research focused mainly on older adolescents aged 15-19, revealing the knowledge gap for sexually active 10-14 year olds.

The overall objective of the WHO technical consultation was to identify and recommend to WHO (particularly the Special Programme of Research, Development and Research Training in Human Reproduction) a set of policy-relevant themes, methodologies and potential country settings for a programme of collaborative research on the sexual and reproductive health and rights of younger adolescents. The specific objectives were to (a) identify key problems, needs and proposed interventions; (b) determine which types of data would be most useful for planning and programme purposes in developing countries; and (c) propose methodologies for obtaining these data.