Desmond Nji, Deserve Cameroon

Desmond Nji is an award-winning and passionate young promoter of gender equality with more than 14 years of community engagement to promote sexual and reproductive health services and the fight against HIV/AIDS among adolescents, youth and women in Cameroon and more widely. He researches health services issues. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Dschang, Cameroon, graduate and postgraduate diplomas in economics from the University of Bamenda, Cameroon, and a Master of Science in Health Economics from the Norwich Medical School, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom. As a Queen’s Young Leader, he took the Leading Change courses from the Institute of Continuing Education, University of Cambridge.

He is the founder of DESERVE, National Vice President of the Cameroon Youth Network, a PMNCH Adolescent and Youth constituency member and a Women Deliver Young Leader. He led the PMNCH/Women Deliver Advocating for Change for Adolescents Project in Cameroon, which was launched in 2018 and recently endorsed by the Cameroon Minister of Youth Affairs and Civic Education. This work included adapting the English and French versions of the toolkit to enable disaggregated data collection on adolescent health and well-being. Desmond also led two sexuality education projects in Cameroon between 2016 and 2018, which developed an age-appropriate sexuality education manual for secondary schools. He also served as co-chair of PMNCH’s Advocacy Working Group.