The Higher Population Council, with the participation of national stakeholders, released the policy brief on youth friendly reproductive health services and launched the online reproductive health platform.

During the event, HPC Secretary General, Engineer Maisoon Al Zoubi said that the policy brief aims to advocate to decisionmakers and community leaders the importance of youth reproductive health rights and needs, and highlighting the importance of raising the awareness of those working with youth of the need to provide youth with culturally appropriate information about healthy lifestyles and prevention of HIV and addiction.

HPC SG indicated that the online portal for reproductive health knowledge aims to provide experts, researchers and decisionmakers with a comprehensive database of studies and research, and keep researchers apprised of the latest updates locally and internationally.

Al Zoubi noted that studies and research on the online portal have been classified into key areas including, policies, programs and services, and priority research in population and reproductive health. The portal allows for downloading the full studies, participating in the interactive forum for researchers, policymakers, decision makers and program developers and implementers, as well as participating in the experts database to facilitate the sharing of expertise.

Director of Studies and Policies at HPC, Ali Al Mutlaq, reviewed the main current and future activities that HPC is implementing with the center through the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs to support reproductive health research.

He further indicated that the center supported the development of the online reproductive health platform and the policy brief in addition to other activities and initiatives to facilitate the creation and dissemination of reproductive health knowledge and reproductive rights online and offline and building the capacity of key partners in identifying knowledge gaps in reproductive health in Jordan.

HPC Chief Researcher, Ghaleb Al Azzeh, presented the main policies derived from the Policy Brief on Youth Friendly Reproductive Health Services, including the delivering youth friendly services in governmental health centers, activating the role of school counselors and biology teachers at MOE schools to address reproductive health and sex education issues during counselling and biology classes, delivering youth-friendly reproductive health service delivery at youth centers, developing national standards for the delivery of services that are sensitive to the local culture and religious values, incorporating youth reproductive health needs in national strategies and agendas, sectoral strategies and development programs.

IT Advisor at the Council, Iyad Fakhouri, gave a presentation to participants about the online knowledge platform for reproductive health and explained how it is used.