This brief reviews existing resources and analyses potential bottlenecks for the processes in applying for EMTCT/Path to Elimination and to strengthen ongoing PMTCT programmes in such applications. Eight UNICEF priority countries were selected for the review: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, the Republic of Moldova, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan.
This report presents the results of a study commissioned by UNICEF Tajikistan in collaboration with the Republican AIDS Centre and the NGO Guli Surkh to evaluate the impact of social allowances on the treatment outcomes of children living with HIV in Tajikistan. Of the 7,552 persons living with HIV in Tajikistan today, 10.2 per cent are children under the age of 18. As of December 2017, 90.5 per cent of these children were covered with antiretroviral therapy.
For adolescent boys and girls, transitioning to adulthood means facing significant social, health and economic risks. These include a lack of economic opportunities, early marriage and pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections including HIV, violence, abuse and exploitation. To support a safe, healthy and productive passage to adulthood, the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF), the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), UNICEF and other key stakeholders have developed, implemented and evaluated an intervention where social protection and economic empowerment interventions are combined with sexual and reproductive health education and services as part of the Tanzanian government’s cash transfer programme, the Productive Social Safety Net (PSSN).
The resources available include a project brief with a summary of the programme components and impact evaluation, as well as research briefs and reports from the baseline, midline and third wave of data collection.
This implementation brief examines the current efforts in eastern and southern Africa to accelerate and scale up evidence-based PrEP delivery platforms for adolescent girls and young women. The brief provides current knowledge and builds on WHO guidance to provide key considerations for implementation, including driving demand and improving quality, as well as focus on wider combination prevention and integration agendas.
Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) remain disproportionately affected by HIV in eastern and southern Africa, however, they face many personal, social and structural barriers to access, uptake and use of traditional HIV prevention methods. Oral Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) is proven to be highly effective as an additional prevention choice for reducing the risk of HIV acquisition, but the current demand for PrEP by AGYW is low with suboptimal adherence.
Within the region, there is currently great impetus to address these challenges and scale up PrEP for AGYW. A critical aspect of this is to leverage the learnings and evidence from implementation of how to improve the demand and quality of PrEP programming for this population. Improving the Quality of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Implementation for Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Eastern and Southern Africa is informed by knowledge and lessons learned emerging from a virtual thank tank and webinar convened by UNICEF together with WHO AFRO and the Global Fund, with support from the SIDA funded 2gether 4 SRHR programme, in early 2021.
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EVIDENCE UPDATE 2024
Over the past three years, the PrEP landscape has evolved significantly including for AGYW in Eastern and Southern Africa who continue to be disproportionately affected by HIV. The evidence update titled: Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis and Adolescent Girls and Young Women in Eastern and Southern Africa: The latest insights, aims to enhance the quality and coverage of PrEP programming for AGYW. The brief, developed by AVAC, UNICEF and the Global Fund, summarizes the most recent evidence on AGYW PrEP provision and serves as a supplement to the original 2021 implementation brief.
AGYW Resource Guide for strengthening national responses to the crisis of HIV amoung young women and girls.
This regional report aims to strengthen risk-informed programming and facilitate scale up of simple and effective tools to identify and reach those adolescent girls and young women who are most in need of services and support. All the available tools included in the review are linked in the annexes and included in UNICEF's AGYW Programming and Implementation Repository.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), with collaborating partners from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Secretariat of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), have developed this guidance to build upon and complement the UN International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education (ITGSE). It offers more in-depth programmatic guidance on how to develop CSE programmes that are appropriate and safe for different groups of children and young people, especially those who are unlikely to be addressed in CSE programmes for children and young people generally.
Available in English and Spanish.
In partnership with the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, UNICEF has supported the governments of Botswana and Lesotho to implement targeted programmes for adolescent girls and young women. In Lesotho, a national multi-sectoral referral framework is strengthening community-facility linkages and is catalyzing increased access to HIV/SRH services by guiding adolescent and young people to appropriate services and care. In Botswana, a radio drama series together with peer education components is tackling tough issues adolescents are facing in love, life and relationships. Documentation of both experiences are available for download.
The AGYW Programming & Implementation Repository contains resources relevant to AGYW programming that have been collated to support enhanced implementation and programming of Global Fund Catalytic Funding for HIV prevention among AGYW in Eastern and Southern Africa. Developed in collaboration with Global Fund in response to an identified need from the SEA sub-region, we are confident that you will all find the repository useful in your support of national AGYW programmes.
The repository is housed on Google Drive and is accessible without a Gmail account. The resources are organized in folders by key programming area and are easily searchable through a google sheet. Powerpoint slides have also been developed to help you navigate through the repository.
The spreadsheet and slideshow are available for download above.