UNESCO believes in education as the cornerstone of a sustainable and effective approach to HIV prevention… UNESCO joins the UNAIDS Secretariat and Cosponsoring partners in commemorating the first World AIDS Day in the era of the Sustainable Development Goals.            

                                                         Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General    

Young women between the ages of 15 and 24 are particularly vulnerable to the risk of HIV infection, with 7,500 of them becoming newly infected with HIV every week in 2015. Data from studies in six locations within eastern and southern Africa reveal that 90 per cent of 15 – 19-year-old girls in southern Africa and 74 per cent of 15 – 19-year-old girls in eastern Africa accounted for 90 per cent of all new HIV infections among 10–19-year-olds.These were the findings from the new UN AIDS Get on the Fast-Track Report: The life-cycle approach to HIV, released in the lead up to World AIDS DAY 2016.

Addressing the elevated HIV risk and vulnerability of adolescents, particularly girls and young women, is a key priority for UNESCO. “For over two decades, UNESCO has been supporting countries to advance the prevention agenda, through work to promote comprehensive sexuality education, as well as through other important health issues, such as strengthening the education sector response to substance use, and preventing violence in schools on the basis of gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation,” said UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova.

This approach is encompassed in the new UNESCO Strategy on Education for Health and Well-being, which is aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals and the UNAIDS 2016-2021 Strategy, and which reflects growing recognition of the significant inter-linkages between education, health and well-being. UNESCO’s vision for comprehensive action also includes preventing violence in schools on the basis of gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. These issues will be further explored through the December 2016 release of the Global Guidance on School-Related Gender Based Violence and at the International Symposium on School Violence and Bullying: From Evidence to Action in Seoul, Republic of Korea, from 17 – 19  January, 2017.