HIV and AIDS

Civil society's participation in the governance of the Global Fund has been a significant step forward in the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in poor countries. Yet much remains to be learned about effectively involving civil society in the decision making processes and governance of global institutions such as the Global Fund. ICRW completed a two-year research and advocacy initiative to examines civil society's participation in the Global Fund and the extent to which the Global Fund has integrated gender considerations into its programs and decision making processes.

ICRW, along with a consortium of organizations, led the Parliamentarians for Women's Health project, which sought to assist select parliamentarians in East and southern Africa to more efficiently improve women's and girls' access to health services, particularly HIV and AIDS treatment, prevention, care and counseling.

Other publications in this series:
Guide for Community Assessments on Women's Health Care
Networking Proves Vital Strategy to Improving Women's Health Care
Parliamentarians Use Local Assessments to Connect with Their Communities
Workshops Bolster Parliamentarians as Leaders on Women's Health

Assessments in Kenya and Namibia Arm MPs with Firsthand Knowledge of Women and AIDS

ICRW, along with a consortium of organizations, led the Parliamentarians for Women's Health project, which sought to assist select parliamentarians in East and southern Africa to more efficiently improve women's and girls' access to health services, particularly HIV and AIDS treatment, prevention, care and counseling.

Other publications in this series:
Guide for Community Assessments on Women's Health Care
Parliamentarians for Women's Health, Project Paves the Way for Change
Networking Proves Vital Strategy to Improving Women's Health Care
Workshops Bolster Parliamentarians as Leaders on Women’s Health

Although there are a growing number of programs working to reduce stigma, few of these programs have been evaluated, particularly at the community level. Documentation and evaluation of these pioneering efforts is essential so that successful program elements can be replicated and scaled up. To help fill this gap, ICRW, the Muhimbili University College of the Health Sciences (MUCHS), the Horizons Program of Population Council, and Family Health International (FHI) conducted an evaluation of a community-based effort to reduce stigma in a peri-urban community in Tanzania.

This guide is designed for use by a wide variety of stakeholders working in Tanzania's grassroots organizations, program designers, donors, researchers, policy makers, media, and planners and implementers of HIV and AIDS activities at all levels to strengthen HIV stigma reduction efforts in their specific contexts. The guide first provides an overview of key concepts with respect to HIV-related stigma and discrimination.

In Kiswahili

ICRW, along with a consortium of organizations, led the Parliamentarians for Women's Health project, which sought to assist select parliamentarians in East and southern Africa to more efficiently improve women's and girls' access to health services, particularly HIV and AIDS treatment, prevention, care and counseling.

Other publications in this series:
Guide for Community Assessments on Women's Health Care
Parliamentarians for Women's Health, Project Paves the Way for Change
Parliamentarians Use Local Assessments to Connect with Their Communities
Workshops Bolster Parliamentarians as Leaders on Women's Health

The analysis in this report focuses on how three large and influential donors – the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the World Bank’s Africa Multi-Country AIDS Program (the MAP) – address the risks, vulnerabilities, and consequences of the HIV/AIDS epidemic for women and girls.

Women in many countries are far less likely than men to own property and assets - key tools to gaining economic security and earning higher incomes. Though laws to protect women's property rights exist in most countries, gender and cultural constraints can prevent women from owning or inheriting property. In this series, ICRW suggests practical steps to promote, protect and fulfill women's property rights.

Other publications in this series:
Women's Property Rights as an AIDS Response, Emerging Efforts in South Asia
Women's Property Rights, HIV and AIDS, and Violence in South Africa and Uganda: Preliminary Findings
Women's Property Rights as an AIDS Response, Lessons from Community Interventions in Africa
Mending the Gap Between Law and Practice, Organizational Approaches for Women's Property Rights
Connecting Rights to Reality: A Progressive Framework of Core Legal Protections for Women's Property Rights

As the impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic deepens in Sub-Saharan Africa, and medical interventions to extend and improve the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS become more widely available, the need to understand and counter HIV and AIDS related stigma and discrimination has grown more urgent. It is widely acknowledged that stigma is one of the "greatest barriers" to HIV care and prevention. USAID recognized that there was a dearth of data to inform the design of interventions to reduce stigma and discriminatory practices and, in response, supported a three-country research study to be conducted by the ICRW, the CHANGE Project and local partners in Africa. This report synthesizes the findings of that study.

This paper provides a brief overview of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief's (PEPFAR) record on gender and offers five recommendations to help the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator (OGAC) make gender central to its policies and programs. Together, these recommendations focus on the content of PEPFAR's programs, outlining ways to make them more gender-responsive, and on processes that OGAC can institute to increase transparency and ensure that its programs remain gender responsive and relevant to the populations it seeks to serve.