Table 1 Policies aimed at reducing adolescent pregnancy in Ghana identified by health and education professionals
Policies | Key strategies as stated in the policy | Number of participants naming each policy; (n = 15) |
|---|---|---|
Adolescent Health Service Policy and Strategy, (2016–2020) [17] | • Using social and behavioural change communication strategies to enhance adolescent sexual and reproductive health • Improving access to family planning services among adolescents • Reducing school drop-out rates • Preventing and responding to harmful practices such as forced marriages and sexual violence against adolescents | 1 |
Adolescent Reproductive Health Policy, 2000 [29] | • Adolescent sexual and reproductive health education using mass media, counselling, symposia and club activities • Strengthening the teaching and learning of reproductive health issues in schools and organizing reproductive health programmes for out of school adolescents • Promoting pre-marital sexual abstinence as an acceptable way of life • Establishment of youth centres/libraries to provide adolescents with sexual and reproductive health services • Enhancing youth involvement in the formulation and implementation of sexual and reproductive health services • Involving youth in the formulation and implementation of sexual and reproductive health services • Increasing availability of and accessibility to adolescent reproductive health services, including family planning | 4 |
Child and Family Welfare Policy, 2014 [30] | • Economic empowerment through Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP), capitation grants, the National Health Insurance Scheme and free maternal care, school uniforms or school feeding programme • Youth involvement in decision making processes • Research, monitoring and assessments of child protection issues | 2 |
Five Year Strategic Plan to Address Adolescent Pregnancy in Ghana, (2018–2022) [31] | • Empowering adolescents to make choices regarding their sexual debut and enabling them to prevent early and unplanned pregnancies • Promoting institutional and community engagement to prevent adolescent pregnancy • Ensuring that adolescents, especially those who are sexually active have access to youth-friendly and gender-responsive sexual and reproductive health information and services • Expanding adolescents' access to education and retention beyond Junior High School level especially for girls | 2 |
National Gender Policy, 2015 [32] | • Promoting educational and issue–related programmes for total elimination of harmful practices including child marriages • Enforcing the teaching of age-appropriate education to girls and boys on sexuality and reproductive health and rights in school curricula, including issues of gender relations and responsible sexual behaviour, focused on preventing teenage pregnancies • Developing and implementing scholarship schemes for girl children and ensuring girls are retained in school to complete and move on to the next levels to avoid being victims of child and early marriage and motherhood situations that disempower them | 2 |
National Strategic Framework to end Child Marriage, (2017–2026) [33] | • Empowering girls and boys to be better able to prevent and respond to child marriage • Influencing positive change in communities’ beliefs and attitudes and social norms that drive child marriage • Accelerating access to quality education, sexual and reproductive health information and services and other opportunities • Ensuring national laws, policy frameworks and mechanisms related to ending child marriage are in place, effectively enforced and implemented | 2 |
National Youth Policy, 2010 [34] | • Improving the knowledge of youth about preventive health care and assisting them avoid practices such as engaging in early and irresponsible sexual activities • Developing programmes that will keep pupils and students in school to reduce school drop-outs • Providing apprenticeship training for out -of -school youth • Mentoring youth through the use of role models | 3 |