LUSAKA, ZAMBIA – Family Development Initiatives (FDI), a Zambian civil society organisation focused on sexual and reproductive health education (SRHE) for adolescents, especially girls and persons with disabilities, has launched a three-year project to strengthen interventions in child protection and reproductive health.
Titled “Empowered Communities for Sustainable Reproductive Health and Rights (ECS-RHR),” the project will target girls in 50 schools across 10 districts in three provinces of Zambia.
Zambia, like many other sub-Saharan African countries, continues to grapple with high rates of HIV, teenage pregnancy, and other reproductive health challenges. According to the latest Zambia National Demographic and Health Survey, 29% of girls aged 15–19 have already given birth—a figure significantly higher in rural areas than in urban settings.
FDI attributes the trend to disparities in education and economic opportunity, warning that early pregnancy has immediate and long-term consequences for girls’ health, schooling, and earning potential, often perpetuating a cycle of poverty and vulnerability for their children.
The survey also links teenage pregnancies to elevated rates of maternal mortality, disability, complications from unsafe abortions, and increased exposure to sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV.
The Zambian government has expressed optimism about the project’s potential impact. Minister of Education, Douglas Syakalima, emphasised the urgency of addressing child marriages, early and unintended pregnancies, gender-based violence, and child abuse.
“Projects like this are essential to ending early marriages and other harmful practices. We must act collectively,” he said.
Dr. Syakalima also called on traditional, religious, political, and business leaders to emulate FDI’s efforts in combating adolescent reproductive health challenges.
To improve access to adolescent reproductive health services, the Ministry of Health introduced national standards and guidelines for Adolescent-Friendly Health Services (AFHS) in 2009. However, uptake has remained low due to social, cultural, and religious barriers, poor adherence to standards, and limited service capacity.
These findings are supported by the 2019 Ex-post Evaluation of the MDGi programme, the 2014 VAC survey, and various USAID assessments of youth-friendly facilities.
