Giving Compass' Take: 

• Brookings explores a recent sex education program in Uganda, which aims to give girls in the country more agency over their bodies, but cultural norms stand in the way.

• How can we seek to empower girls around the world through sex education, while still respecting local customs? It starts with engaging the whole community in changes to the system.

• Here's how the global infant mortality rate could be dramatically reduced by basic sanitation and sex education.

Uganda recently launched the National Sexuality Education Framework 2018, which aims to provide formal, national direction for sex education within Uganda’s schools. While this framework demonstrates a step in the right direction at the policy level, social norms related to religious, traditional, and cultural values permeating Ugandan society pose challenges to the framework’s successful implementation.

Sex education is a controversial national debate, but the issue of adolescent sex education is a global discussion not unique to Uganda. The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development’s (ICPD) Program of Action calls on governments to provide sexuality education both in schools and at the community level that is age-appropriate, begins as early as possible, and fosters mature decision making. The dilemma, though, is how quickly Ugandans will embrace this policy and ensure that girls can learn and be safe.

Read the full article about sex education in Uganda by Christine Apiot Okudi at Brookings.