Global Perspectives on Adolescent Health and Economic Strengthening: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa

Over one third of the global population is under the age of 19, and 90 % of these youth live in developing countries. Nearly half of developing country youth live on less than $2 a day, and poverty exacerbates threats to wellbeing. In sub-Saharan Africa, the interactive effects of youth poverty and disease are particularly severe. Decades of economic crisis, the AIDS pandemic, and civil conflict have left millions of African youth orphaned or otherwise vulnerable while simultaneously weakening family support systems. Fifteen million youth in sub-Saharan Africa have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS. These youth disproportionately miss out on education and are more likely to engage in risk-taking behavior such as unprotected sex and substance abuse. An equally significant number are affected by wars and civil conflict. If unaddressed, the mutually reinforcing crises of youth poverty and disease threaten fragile development gains, suggesting a devastating downward spiral in human development over the next generation. Recognizing the urgency of the crises, researchers, practitioners, academics, and programmers came together to exchange ideas, showcase evidence, share lessons learned from field studies, and offer suggestions for future research at the Global Perspectives on Adolescent Health and Economic Strengthening Conference: Lessons from Sub-Saharan Africa, the first ever conference on adolescent health and economic strengthening that provided a forum for exchange, dissemination, and development of innovative economic strengthening research in sub-Saharan Africa over the past decade. Conference participants discussed the future of economic strengthening programs in low-resource communities, especially communities affected by poverty and disease, including HIV/ AIDS, and children in emergency situations. In this special issue, we are honored to present papers from this conference. This special issue showcases empirical research and review articles revealing the latest findings and discoveries in the burgeoning fields of child protection programs and economic strengthening interventions for children, adolescents, and their caregiving families in regions experiencing adversities, such as poverty, disease, conflict, and humanitarian crises. In Protecting Assets for the Most Vulnerable: The Potential for Asset-Based Interventions, Njeri Kagotho provides an overview of the legal framework in Kenya and Uganda intended to protect vulnerable and socially excluded populations, particularly women, children, and people living with HIV. In practice, however, these laws fail to safeguard the populations they target. When these groups are susceptible to disenfranchisement, programs are needed to fill gaps where laws fail. Among the successful interventions are those that have incorporated components of asset building by connecting disenfranchised populations to formal financial institutions. Kagotho stresses the versatility of asset-building programs given their reach, scope, and documented success. Leyla Karimli, Fred Ssewamala, Torsten Neilands, and Mary McKay examine the savings behavior of poor families and orphaned children in Uganda using data from a cluster randomized controlled trial in Matched Child Savings Accounts in Low Resource Communities: Who Saves? Their analyses demonstrate that orphaned children who participated * Fred M. Ssewamala fs2114@columbia.edu