CSIS launched the Task Force on Women’s and Family Health in the belief that there is an exceptional opportunity—and pressing need—for U.S. leadership in this critical area. The Task Force has generated a bold vision, detailed in this report, for a major U.S. initiative by the Trump administration to unlock the potential of adolescent girls and young women in select low-income countries. It is a call for a new and different U.S. approach to foreign assistance: one that creatively integrates key health interventions—improving maternal and newborn health, increasing access to voluntary family planning, reducing anemia, and expanding access to the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer—with education and other development efforts. It promises to deliver concrete and enduring returns on investment, firmly establish adolescent girls and young women as a pillar of long-term economic growth and opportunity, as well as bring vital benefits to Americans.
