The agenda for accelerated country action provides guidance for UN agencies at the country level (UN joint teams on AIDS) on actions to be taken in collaboration with governments, civil society and development partners to make national AIDS policies and programmes more responsive to the specific needs, and more protective of the rights, of women and girls.

Хотя женщины и составляют половину населения планеты, их положение нельзя назвать равноправным. Это особенно очевидно, когда речь заходит о ВИЧ. Половина всех людей, живущих с ВИЧ, – женщины, но многие из них не получают необходимой помощи или же не знают своего статуса. Несмотря на многочисленные свидетельства успехов, женщины по-прежнему сталкиваются с неравенством, которое препятствует полной реализации потенциала мер противодействия СПИДу.

Review of the rationale and main elements of the Global Coalition on Women and AIDS.

The American Public Health Association has a long and distinguished tradition of linking health and human rights and I am honored to have the opportunity to address you all this morning.

Speech by Dr Meskerem Grunitzky-Bekele, Director of the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for West and Central Africa

It troubles me greatly to say that caring societies are in recession. We are bombarded with news and reports of increasingly terrible acts perpetuated on women. In South Africa according the Medical Research Council of Cape Town University, one in four women report being abused by an intimate partner – and every six hours a woman is killed. In the UK according to the British Crime Survey, a reported 80,000 women suffer rape every year2. Research from a number of countries confirms what seems common sense: there is a strong relationship between intimate partner violence and HIV status.

Pot-banging for gender equality and universal access: scaling up our engagement with men and boys

The lessons we have learned from 30 years of responding to AIDS can be readily applied to pushing the NCD agenda forward. If the women leaders assembled here today can mobilize the same energy, commitment and perseverance that you have demonstrated in the AIDS response, then we will deliver life-changing results for women, girls and the future of NCDs.

To help measure progress on gender equality and HIV, a global indicator on “prevalence of recent intimate partner violence” has been added to the core indicators for country reporting on the progress in the AIDS response, with 52 countries having reported on the indicator. The UNAIDS family would like to reiterate its readiness to work with all partners to eliminate violence against women and girls and work towards the vision of Zero new HIV infections, Zero AIDS-related deaths, and Zero discrimination.

What we need is a social revolution. First, we must give women and girls the power to protect themselves from HIV by giving them access to the life skills and knowledge of sexuality education. Second, this social revolution calls for a shift in the development agenda. Poverty reduction must be accompanied by an expansion of dignity and freedom for women and girls.