Safeguard Young People (SYP) is a regional programme which started in 2013 for countries within Southern Africa, that is, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Its goal is to improve the health and wellbeing of adolescents and young people aged 10-24 years. The programme has three phases in which each phase lasts three years. The SYP Programme has a governance and management architecture agreed upon with the Government of Switzerland that is cofunding this programme with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). In 2020/21, SYP has been expanded to include countries in the Eastern Africa Region: Rwanda and the United Republic of Tanzania. In Tanzania the program was officially launched in April, 2022. The Safeguard Young People (SYP) Programme is being implemented in mainland Tanzania and Zanzibar with a focus on regions with poor adolescent social, reproductive health and rights indicators including on teenage pregnancy, HIV, child marriage, and gender-based inequalities. The programme complements priorities of the nation in general and is aligned to the UNFPA 9th Country Program Documents.
The overall goal is to contribute to Tanzania’s efforts in improving the health and wellbeing of adolescents and young people aged 10- 24 years. The programme has three dimensional objectives focusing on
(i) Enabling the environment, that is; Support the government to create conducive environment and scale up implementation of policies that promote and protect adolescent and young people’s rights;
(ii) Demand, that is; create awareness to adolescent on informed decision making on sexual reproductive health and rights and
(iii) Supply, that is; increase access to quality adolescents and youth friendly integrated SRHR, GBV and HIV services.
The Safeguard Young People is a co-funded programme by UNFPA and the Embassy of Switzerland, implemented in Tanzania on a three-year phased modality. The first three years phase started in 2021 until 2023, costing $5,100,000.
