ALHIV

Global initiatives are urging countries to prioritize quality as a way of reinforcing human rights-based approaches to health. Yet evidence from both high- and low-income countries shows that services for adolescents are highly fragmented, poorly coordinated and uneven in quality. Pockets of excellent practice exist, but, overall, services need significant improvement and should be brought into conformity with existing guidelines.

The WHO/UNAIDS global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents aim to assist policy-makers and health service planners to improve the quality of health-care services, so that adolescents find it easier to obtain the health services that they need to promote, protect, and improve their health and well-being, according to their needs. 

This publication presents global standards for quality health-care services for adolescents, as well as an implementation guide and monitoring tools.

This synthesis report reflects a comprehensive review of the body of research undertaken through the Evidence-to-Action partnership.

With support from the Joint UN 2gether 4SRHR programme, a research partnership with the University of Oxford and University of Cape Town was established with the aim to improve HIV, SRH, and the overall well-being of adolescents by providing sustainable and scalable services. The partnership, which was ongoing from 2018 to 2023, investigated drivers of HIV and SRH risk in adolescents, and was committed to generating and using the latest evidence to propose practical solutions, shape programmes and guide decision-making for adolescents.

The results of the partnership are being used in integrating evidence into programming for adolescents throughout the region. They are summarized in a synthesis report, along with the six evidence-to-action briefs featured here.

This brief, the first in UNICEF's new Leveraging the Learning series, sets out to leverage the learnings from holistic, integrated, multisectoral, and age- and gender-responsive approaches to respond to and reduce early and adolescent pregnancy, support young mothers, and improve health and well-being outcomes for adolescent girls and their children. 

Highlighting promising practices for pregnant adolescents living with HIV, the report is relevant for efforts to support all pregnant adolescent girls, regardless of their HIV status.

ALL In to #EndAdolescentAIDS

Around the world, an estimated 2.1 million adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 years were living with HIV in 2016. Some 260,000 older adolescents (aged 15–19 years) were newly infected with HIV in 2016, or nearly  a new infection every two minutes. Nearly three out of four new infections occurred in sub-Saharan Africa. And adolescent girls continue to be disproportionately affected. Globally, nearly two thirds (65 per cent) of new HIV infections among adolescents aged 15–19 years were among girls.

Progress in preventing new infections among adolescents remains unacceptably slow, with new infections declining by only 14 per cent since 2010. Equally concerning, between 2000 and 2015, annual AIDS-related deaths declined for all age groups except adolescents (aged 10–19 years).

Demographic realities further undermine recent hopeful trends. In sub-Saharan Africa, the region most affected by HIV, the youth population has begun to explode in size and will continue to do so, with projections indicating that the number of people younger than 20 will double in 2030. That means redoubled efforts will be necessary to prevent an increase in new HIV infections among adolescents.

Building on the collaborative effort that resulted in tremendous progress in scaling up lifesaving anti-retroviral treatment and preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa region (ESAR), UNAIDS and UNICEF launched a campaign titled All In to End Adolescent AIDS (All In) in 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya.

This report highlights how All In mobilized partners, engaged adolescents and young people and influenced policies and programmes in the 14 high-burden HIV countries in ESAR. The report documents the progress made in a few short years on adolescent HIV, and offers suggestions and recommendations on how to strengthen strategic information, apply evidence-based programming and mobilize resources for adolescents in the HIV response. 

A practical guide to meaningfully engage adolescents in the AIDS response.