I think there is a growing awareness in the international assistance community, and more particularly in the global health and SRHR communities, about the leadership role that we want to ensure communities, and the persons we aim to serve, themselves play in the work that we do, whether it be programming or policy. That includes adolescents in particular, adolescent girls and adolescent boys.
In some of the initiatives we work with, we try to ensure not just a seat at the table but really an active and direct participation by youth representatives. I have the great privilege of working with an organization called the Global Financing Facility, which is a World Bank mechanism that ensures effective primary health services and comprehensive SRHR in 32 countries. We've worked to ensure not just a youth voice at the table, but an active role in the governance of the mechanisms such that the youth representative has an equal voice and vote to other donors or affected communities themselves. A youth representative will sit with me as a donor representative, along with ministers of health, and really be equipped to occupy that space.
We also ensure that the youth delegates are provided with any additional support that they require before the meeting so that they are able to be prepared and conversant on the topics. Sometimes our counterpart ministers of health can get swept away a little bit with dialogue. It's important to level the playing field to make sure that everyone is able to engage meaningfully in a way that's consequential as well.
That's just one example, but I think it shows that from the top, in terms of global governance of an international health institution, right down to the community level, we are making every effort to increase the local participation and direction that we receive for the efforts we make.
Global Affairs only provides international assistance for global health and SRHR that supports local priorities. Increasingly, we want to make sure that those local priorities are shaped not just by national governments but also by subnational and community voices, including youth.