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The paper reviews literature on adolescent reproductive health in Africa. It airs to highlight the structural factors which shape their sexual behaviour. The literature was collectçd using IESTOR and Medline databases. We first entered the words "reproductive health" to get an overall idea of existing literature. The field was then narrowed by entering: "reproductive health, youth", "reproductive F~ealth, youth, Africa", "youth, sexuality, Africa". We looked into the references provided in the articles. The paper is structured in three parts. The first presents the major problems associated with young people's sexual behaviour. The second deals with solutions used to tackle these problems. The third concerns the structural factors which shape young people's sexual behaviour. It focuses especially on economic factors, gender inequalities and sexual violence. We conclude that: studies undertaken on reproductive health of a~olescents especially highlight the vulnerability of girls; adolescents' sexual behaviour cannot be separated from their social, cultural, political and economic environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]