Gendered Empowerment and HIV Prevention: Policy and Programmatic Pathways to Success in the MENA Region (original) (raw)
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As the HIV/AIDS epidemic has progressed, the role of gender inequality in its transmission has become increasingly apparent. Nearly half of those living with the virus worldwide are women, and women's subordination to men increases their risk of infection and makes it harder for them to access treatment once infected. Men, too, suffer from harmful gender norms-the expectation that they will behave in ways that heighten their risk of HIV infection and that they will be cavalier about seeking health care increases their vulnerability to the disease. In the Middle East and North Africa, HIV infection rates are low, but changing gender norms have the potential to accelerate the spread of the disease if gender inequality is not addressed. Improving women's education, workforce participation, and social and political opportunities is crucial to strengthening health in the region. Work with men to shift gender imbalances is a further important task for the region's policymakers and civil society groups.
EMPOWERING WOMEN IN HIV PREVENTION GENDERINCLUSIVE PROGRAMS FOR LOW INCOME COUNTRIES
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Women, particularly in low-income countries, are disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic, with social, cultural, and economic factors exacerbating their vulnerability. Gender-inclusive HIV prevention programs have emerged as a critical strategy to address these disparities by focusing on the unique needs of women and girls. These programs seek to empower women by addressing issues such as gender-based violence, limited access to education, economic dependency, and societal norms that restrict women’s ability to negotiate safe sexual practices. The integration of sexual and reproductive health services, economic empowerment, community-based interventions, and education has shown positive outcomes in reducing HIV transmission rates among women. Despite these successes, several challenges hinder the effectiveness of gender-inclusive HIV programs in low-income countries. Cultural norms that limit women’s autonomy, economic constraints that foster dependency, and healthcare system weaknesses prevent many women from accessing critical HIV prevention services. Additionally, stigma surrounding HIV and its intersection with gender inequality continues to deter women from seeking testing and treatment. Overcoming these barriers requires a comprehensive approach that includes social, legal, and healthcare reforms, alongside sustained political will and financial investment in gender-sensitive programs.
Africa’s Public Service Delivery and Performance Review, 2012
This article examines the dynamics between HIV/Aids gender policy strategies and the socio-political demands on HIV/Aids interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. Gender in HIV/Aids intervention seems inescapable. Nowhere else is this more marked than in the social dimensions of HIV/Aids prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. This has resulted in prevention strategies, which are encumbered by the reality of poverty, gender, access, power and the various debates on behavioural change. The social constructions of gender roles and power relations play a significant role in the region’s HIV /Aids dynamic. To this end, the mainstreaming of gender issues into national political, social and economic agenda and policies has been championed by international development and economic institutions. In developing HIV/Aids intervention policies, gender has also been mainstreamed, especially where epidemiological data show the disparity in infection rates between men and women, where women are seen as more ...
HIV and Women's Rights: A Public Policy Perspective (2010)
Policy Note developed from a seminar given at the Dubai School of Government on 5th October, 2010, as part of the Gender and Public Policy Program Research Series by Dr. Khadija Moalla, UNDP Regional Coordinator for the HIV/AIDS Regional Programme in the Arab States (HARPAS).
Hiv and Aids in the Middle East and North Africa
http://www.prb.org/Publications/Reports/2014/middle-east-hiv-aids.aspx The Population Reference Bureau INFORMS people around the world about population, health, and the environment, and EMPOWERS them to use that information to ADVANCE the well-being of current and future generations. PRB's Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Program, initiated in 2001 with funding from the Ford Foundation office in Cairo, responds to the region's need for timely and objective information on population, socioeconomic, and reproductive health issues. The program explores the links among these issues and provides evidence-based policy and program recommendations. Working closely with research organizations in the region, the team produces a series of policy briefs and reports (in English and Arabic) on current population and development topics, conducts workshops on policy communications, and makes presentations at regional and international conferences.
This article examines the dynamics between HIV/Aids gender policy strategies and the socio-political demands on HIV/Aids interventions in sub-Saharan Africa. Gender in HIV/Aids intervention seems inescapable. Nowhere else is this more marked than in the social dimensions of HIV/Aids prevention in sub-Saharan Africa. This has resulted in prevention strategies, which are encumbered by the reality of poverty, gender, access, power and the various debates on behavioural change. The social constructions of gender roles and power relations play a significant role in the region’s HIV /Aids dynamic. To this end, the mainstreaming of gender issues into national political, social and economic agenda and policies has been championed by international development and economic institutions. In developing HIV/Aids intervention policies, gender has also been mainstreamed, especially where epidemiological data show the disparity in infection rates between men and women, where women are seen as more susceptible to infection. The gendered approach to HIV/Aids appears to typecast women as the vulnerable and suffering face of HIV/Aids, while men, as ‘the other’, are generally regarded as the perpetuators and spreaders of the virus. While there is no doubt that women’s vulnerability in this milieu has been proven within known research evidence to exist, the neglect of institutional (social, cultural and economic) and historical vulnerabilities of African men’s realities are sometimes overlooked. Recently, greater focus has shifted to curbing infection rates in men based on new scientific evidence that shows that risk of transmission in circumcised men is reduced. The article argues that such movement towards showing areas of men’s vulnerability as a focus in HIV/Aids policy interventions may have the potential to shift the observed burden that current HIV/Aids policy thrusts inadvertently place on African women. The article will put forward an argument for ‘the vulnerable other’ in HIV/Aids policy intervention, suggesting a new continental policy strategy that sees men going from peripheral footnotes to the centre of HIV/Aids policy and intervention programmes.
Current research recognizes that the HIV pandemic uniquely impacts women, as they are socially and biologically more vulnerable to the infection. However, present measurement strategies focus on assessing the level of HIV infection among women, rather than inequality in the distribution of HIV cases by gender in less-developed nations. In this study, we compare the cross-national determinants of the level of female HIV prevalence to the determinants of the percentage of HIV cases among women. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions suggest that the predictors of female HIV differ across the two measures, where aspects of female empowerment and female access to health resources are more influential in explaining the distribution of HIV cases across gender than the level of female HIV prevalence. These results suggest that analyzing the distribution of HIV cases by gender is a more appropriate way to measure gender disparities in the HIV pandemic. Therefore, future research should be cautious to consider the implications of investigating levels of HIV versus the distribution of HIV cases across populations.