The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) has established an evidence-based approach schools can implement to help prevent HIV, STDs, and unintended pregnancy among adolescents.
Getting tested for HIV is an important step toward prevention; however, testing rates among high school students are low. Schools are important partners in supporting HIV testing among adolescents.
In 2019, WFP has provided school meals, snacks or take-home rations to 17.3 million children in 59 countries in both emergency and stable settings.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of education systems in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion school-age children in more than 190 countries.
School feeding programmes represent one of the largest safety nets in countries across the region – measured in terms of coverage – in the broader framework of national social protection policy and programmes.
School health and nutrition is about investing both in schoolchildren and adolescents’ health and well-being and in their learning, with benefits extending to their homes and communities. When children are sick and hungry, they do not learn well.
In Eastern and Southern Africa, at least 120 million children and youth are not able to attend school due to COVID-19 related school closures. More than 16 million affected school-children in the region rely on school meals and nutrition services.
Given the changing circumstances in the nutrition landscape, there is a need to reassess and reiterate the role of the schools in improving health and nutritional status of children.
The Declaration calls the Member States, civil society and international organizations to act urgently to address health inequalities and improve the social and economic determinants of health.