In response to the rapid uptake and utilization of digital platforms for young people’s sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR/SRH), a UN interagency team consisting of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) at the Asia-Pacific Regional level with support from UNFPA Indonesia and Siklus Indonesia virtually convened digital sexuality education (DSE) creators, influencers, app developers, web designers, advocates, innovators and other relevant stakeholders in DESIRE 2021.

Building on past regional studies and gatherings, through DESIRE 2021 the team aimed to facilitate partnership and learning through harnessing collective intelligence among the creators, and to further highlight young people’s innovation and leadership in the relatively new field of DSE.

The event, one of the first of its kind, was designed to enable cross-sharing of up-to-date evidence and insights, as well as spark discussions about new, pertinent issues around the ever-changing field of DSE. The themes and issues covered in the conference program were crowdsourced from the creators themselves, ranging from how DSE can complement school-based comprehensive sexuality education, how to work with different content formats, rapid user testing, and other topics that are essential for creators to learn in order to produce quality DSE content and manage platforms effectively. The 3-day event consisted of plenary talk shows, parallel sessions, mini workshops, along with virtual exhibitions. This conference report summarizes the key messages and highlights of the DESIRE 2021 event.

This report provides an overview of DESIRE 2021 and its key results.