UNFPA is committed to combating the epidemic. It recognizes that the fight against HIV/AIDS is a complex process, involving preventing the infection, caring and supporting people living with HIV and AIDS, and mitigating the consequences of the epidemic. HIV/AIDS should be a priority for all institutions concerned with development, with each contributing appropriately to the continuum of prevention and care.

	Rationale for Emphasis on Prevention
	Framework for Strategic Programming
	Decision Making Process

Rationale for Emphasis on Prevention

For UNFPA, preventing and decreasing the number of new infections is the mainstay of its contribution to the global fight against HIV/AIDS.

In the absence of a cure or preventive vaccine, and with treatment unaffordable or inaccessible for most people who need it, prevention is the most feasible approach to reversing the epidemic.

Prevention is also the challenge most appropriately and directly linked to the Fund’s primary mandate – to help ensure universal access to high-quality sexual and reproductive health services to all couples and individuals by 2015.

The Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), recommends that reproductive health programmes “increase their efforts to prevent, detect and treat sexually transmitted diseases and other reproductive tract infections” (paragraph 7.30).

In accordance with the ICPD Programme of Action, HIV/AIDS is as an integral component of reproductive and sexual health and rights.

Prevention has been proven to work, is cost effective and feasible. Irrespective of the magnitude or stage of he epidemic in a country or community, it is never too early or too late to begin prevention efforts.

The Fund’s added value to the global effort is to concentrate its resources in areas where it has a comparative advantage vis-à-vis other organizations and institutions.

Key elements for strategic programming for HIV prevention are summarized in the following diagram:

These elements are in line with the Multi-Year Funding Framework (MYFF) goals and outputs for 2002-2003 approved by the Executive Board in decision 2000/9. The Fund’s HIV/AIDS prevention focus will contribute to progress being made towards the MYFF goals:

• The capacity of couples and individuals to enjoy good reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health, throughout the life cycle;



• A balance between population dynamics and social and economic development; and



• The achievement of gender equality and empowerment of women.

Advocacy, strengthening national capacity-building, using an evidence and knowledge-based approach, and promoting, strengthening and coordinating partnerships, will all act as interactive and interdependent strategies in those countries and regions where UNFPA’s institutional strategy for the prevention of HIV is implemented.

The three MYFF goals reflect and reaffirm the goals of ICPD, ICPD+5, UNGASS and other United Nations conferences. They are also in line with UNFPA’s three subprogramme areas endorsed by the Executive Board (decision 95/15) — reproductive health, including family planning and sexual health; population and development strategy; and advocacy, with gender equality and equity and the empowerment of women as a cross-cutting dimension in all programmes.

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