This tool offers guidance for how to involve young people in all Global Fund processes, including the development or review of national strategic plans (and/or investment cases), the management of the ongoing country dialogue, the creation of the concept note, the composition of Country Coordinating Mechanisms, and the implementation of Global Fund supported programs. We welcome your feedback and are available to answer any questions you have about implementing this tool. You can contact us at PACT-GlobalFund@gmail.com.

This tool has been developed in collaboration between the PACT—a global alliance of 25 youth organizations working on HIV—UNAIDS and the Global Fund Secretariat. It aims to increase young people’s effective and meaningful participation in the Global Fund, with a specific emphasis on opportunities to participate at the national level.

Working together, cities can take local actions for global impact. Leveraging our reach, infrastructure and human capacity, cities will build a more equitable, inclusive, prosperous and sustainable future for all of our residents—regardless of gender, age, social and economic status or sexual orientation.

This report reflects the results of data for the calendar year 2013. For the first time since the 1990s, the number of new HIV infections among children in the 21 Global Plan priority countries1 in sub-Saharan Africa dropped to under 200 000 [170 000–230 000]. This represents a 43% decline in the number of new HIV infections among children in these 21 countries since 2009, providing reasons for optimism as the Global Plan pushes towards its 2015 goals of 90% reduction. However, there are also reasons for concern. Between 2012 and 2013 the pace of progress in reducing new HIV infections among children across the priority countries slowed substantially. While a number of countries made impressive gains, others stagnated or lost ground.

Scientific evidence and evidence-based action are essential to advance the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) vision of zero HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. In light of the rapid pace at which new scientific information is becoming available, the diversity of fields where research evidence is growing rapidly and their potential importance for current policies, UNAIDS is ensuring it has adequate capacity to assess and assimilate the latest scientific developments to inform UNAIDS policies and advance the global AIDS response.

In an effort to re-energize and re-shape global HIV prevention towards reaching the 2015 target and the ultimate goal of eliminating sexual transmission by 2030, UNAIDS convened a meeting of key stakeholders including National AIDS Programme managers from 14 key countries on 10-11 April, 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland.

The world is embarking on a Fast-Track strategy to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030. To reach this visionary goal after three decades of the most serious epidemic in living memory, countries will need to use the powerful tools available, hold one another accountable for results and make sure that no one is left behind. Additional resources.

Violence against women and girls is an unacceptable violation of basic human rights. It also is so widespread that ending it must be a global public health priority. An estimated one in three women is beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused by an intimate partner during her lifetime. Intimate partner violence has been shown to increase the risk of HIV infection by around 50%, and violence (and the fear of violence) deters women and girls from seeking services for HIV prevention, treatment, care and support.