Over the last decade, there has been growing interest and excitement across the global health sector -- and particularly among those donors, governments and organizations working on AYSRH -- to reignite the way we design and adapt programs to better meet adolescents’ and young people’s needs.
One approach in the program implementer’s toolbox is HCD. HCD is an approach to design-thinking. Elements that are core to HCD -- connecting with people through empathy; generating deep insights about their lives; coming up with ideas (ideation); co-creating solutions; rapidly testing rough solutions (prototyping); continually refining prototypes (iterating); and failing fast in order to pivot, among others -- have re-energized the AYSRH community for a variety of reasons, including a focus on meaningful engagement of adolescents and youth in the design of programs that serve them. Some would say HCD has injected a magnetic hopefulness about the prospect of achieving global goals, like Family Planning 2020 (FP2020). With this excitement and optimism, however, comes skepticism and anxiety about HCD’s application to reach the best outcome for the AYSRH community at large -- and the young people we serve, specifically.