The Centre for the Study of Adolescence is an independent non-partisan, nonprofit organization established in 1988. The purpose
of the centre is to advocate and implement policies and programs
that enable young people to exercise choice, access to services, and participate fully in activities that promote their health and well-being. Kenya’s population is youthful with over 60% of the population being children and young people below the age of 24 years. As they grow up into adults, this generation, irrespective of background is confronted by similar social, political, health and livelihood issues.

Critical problems affecting the youth are those associated with the transition to adulthood with early and unprotected sexual activity in the era of HIV/AIDS. Many young people lack access to correct information and services mostly due to their poor and disadvantaged position in society- poor economic and social status with most infrastructures including the health systems designed to serve the needs of the adult population. The result is increased vulnerability to negative sexual health outcomes including STI/HIV infection, teen pregnancy, unsafe abortion, leading to high maternal and neonatal death, and school dropout among other factors. Programming for youth people at the national level in Kenya is recent. The development of appropriate policies to address the ASRH and development needs of young people is also recent with most efforts being achieved in the past decade.

National policy and programming for adolescents and young people thus remains departmentalized and fragmented in different public sector ministries. With limited public sector capacity and poor resource allocation to implement the existing policies, the rollout of national programs targeting young people has been slow and uncoordinated. An enabling policy and legislative environment is critical for the successful implementation of programs. Yet in recent years, there has been a clear mismatch between policy priorities as set out in key policy framework documents and investments in programs that promote sexual and reproductive health and rights of young people and women. Over the past few years, there has been increasing public discourse on various aspects of development. Debate on social policy issues has increased with more public engagement in public policy discussions than ever before.

Over the past decade, CSA has worked to enhance awareness-creation and provision of information on the status of Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) in Kenya. In the next five years, CSA will intensify its pursuit of a rights and gendered approach to programming. More importantly, we will work to scale up efforts aimed at increasing access to services and designing innovative programs that recognize ingenuity, promote responsibility-taking and encourage participation from among diverse groups of young people.