Fatique or Failure : An Investigation Into Youth-Centric Sexual and Reproductive Health Program

Abstract: Today there is increasing pressure on NGOs in Tanzania who are working with sexual and reproductive health programs (SRHP) from foreign donors because the HIV/AIDS epidemic has taken on emergency proportions. The risk of increasing interference into the policy shaping of domestic SRHP is that the programs lose their local relevance as they get too involved in pleasing foreign donor agendas in order to ensure donor funding. The aim of this study is to analyze the cooperation of The Tanzanian Family Planning Association (UMATI) UMATI and The Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU), who have jointly worked together to form the project Young Men as Equal Partners (YMEP). I argue that the YMEP project has failed to meet the needs of the adolescents with the peer-to-peer methodology as the needs of the adolescents are not being met. The reasons for this are twofold: the Eurocentric post-colonialist nature of the project planning and the local exclusion of adolescents in the project planning process as their sexual and reproductive rights are not being addressed in formal or informal education programs because of traditionalist values. This study is a qualitative study, which uses semi-structured interviews conducted in secondary schools in Manyara Region in Tanzania as a method of data collection. The theory used in this study is a literature review wherein empirical results from both individual and group interviews will be compared to other theoretical views. The conclusion of this study is that adolescents must be incorporated into the NGO programs as well as other stakeholders as this will perhaps challenge their traditionalist values and produce a sustainable behavioral change that will improve the sexual and reproductive health of adolescents in The United Republic of Tanzania.