Fondation Botnar is maintaining its commitment to championing meaningful participation for young people to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through supporting a Global Youth Council along with coalition members.
Fondation Botnar has joined a new coalition of partners including PATH, Women Deliver, and the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health (PMNCH) to provide a platform for young people to share their perspectives on the role of technology in accelerating progress toward UHC. The new Global Youth Council: Tech for Health will give young people the opportunity to share their voice on how digital innovation can uphold quality primary health for all.
Launch of Global Youth Council and application process
To address the lack of opportunities for young people to provide their insights on how we can achieve UHC, we are establishing the youth council with our coalition partners to provide a platform for young people to shape the agenda around digital innovation for UHC; the Council will be comprised of at least six members representing the six World Health Organization regions and will be hosted by Plan International Canada.
The global #Tech4Health Youth Survey demonstrated young people’s desire to have their voices heard in the decisions around the role of technology for their health. Members will be appointed from January 2020 until September 2021. We invite all young people aged between 18-28 years old to apply for this opportunity.
Applications are open now until Oct 21. Apply here.
Background:
Today’s global youth population is the largest in history. Half of the world’s population – over 2.5 billion people – is under 30. Yet, with only 1.9 percent of those aged below 30 having a voice as legislators, and less than 2% of global health funding allocated to their specific health issues, young people continue to be under-represented in both policy and programs. As part of our commitment to bring young people into debates on the policies and programs that affect the future of their health, we strive to create opportunities for young people to share power and responsibility in shaping their health and wellbeing.
Emerging technologies are revolutionising the health care landscape, changing the ways we access health care and improving the quality of it around the world. As digital natives, young people should be at the forefront of this shift, which is why we’re committed to creating platforms that give young people the opportunity to collaborate with policy makers to integrate digital technology into primary health care systems.
Together with PATH, Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Women Deliver and others, we formed a coalition set to improve how we leverage AI, digital and frontier technologies to achieve UHC by 2030. We believe that the views and attitudes of young people toward technology and their role in achieving access to quality health services is crucial to reaching this goal. Read more about the coalition here.
In early 2019, the founding coalition partners commissioned a survey calling for young people aged 15 – 30 years old to have their say on how digital innovation can uphold quality health care for all. Read the full report here and read the key takeaways from the survey here.