With funds from the Ford Foundation, the Population Council/Egypt implemented a series of projects to build the capacity of junior researchers in Egypt to conduct innovative research on youth sexual and reproductive health (SRH).
The first two projects (May 2009–October 2010 and March 2011–August 2013) involved building capacities of junior researchers from several local academic and research institutions through training workshops, issuing of research grants, and technical assistance in proposal development and conducting of research studies. Ten high-caliber qualitative and quantitative studies were developed and implemented by groups of researchers with topics ranging from parent–adolescent communication about pubertal changes, teaching sexual and reproductive health in intermediate schools, and provider–client communication in youth-friendly clinics.
In the third project (April 2013–September 2015), the Population Council worked closely with Assiut University on establishing a center of excellence in youth SRH research. The project involved training a cohort of junior and mid-level researchers in proposal development and the conduct of high-quality research to promote youth sexual and reproductive health in Egypt. The project also involved conducting a large survey of married adolescent girls’ sexual and reproductive health in rural Assiut and Souhag.
The above three projects resulted in the publication of three papers in peer-reviewed journals. Moreover, silence around youth SRH issues was broken among researchers, policymakers, and development agencies resulting in the integration of youth SRH issues into national policies and programs.
