On 8 March 2020, we marked International Women’s Day. The theme for this year was “I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights”. The campaign on realizing women’s rights for an equal future demands equal pay, equal sharing of unpaid care and domestic work, an end to sexual harassment and violence against women and girls, healthcare services that respond to women’s needs, and their equal participation in political life and in decision-making in all spheres of life. Women and their needs are under-represented in these aspects.
2020 is distinct, because it marks 25 years since the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action which is considered the most progressive blueprint ever for advancing women’s rights.
To mark this day, GFAN Africa ran an online social media campaign sharing posters with messages on women’s health, empowerment and gender equality.
The Global Fund launched HER in 2018 to drive down HIV infection rates among adolescent girls and young women through partnerships with the private sector in 13 priority countries. This is just one of the programs that the Global Fund funds to promote gender equality and ensure that women and girls are able to take charge of their own health.
Working together with PEPFAR and other organizations, the Global Fund has increased our investments in adolescent girls and young women fi vefold in the 2017-2019 period, to US$200 million. The Global Fund’s matching funds program used US$55 million to mobilize an additional US$140 million for programs to reduce new HIV infections, violence, and unintended pregnancies among 1 million adolescent girls and young women in 13 hardest-hit countries: Botswana, Cameroon, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
On 4 September, on
the sidelines of the World Economic Forum for Africa, WACI Health, GFAN Africa,
the Global Fund and partners in South Africa hosted young women from South
Africa and had conversations with experts on empowering young women. This is
because young women must overcome barriers that hold them back and increase
their vulnerability to HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. Only when they are
empowered can they #stepupthefight.
In the format of
panel discussions and a world café, discussants beamed the spotlight on the
status of young women and HIV in Africa, stepping up opportunities for young
women at the work place and increasing young women’s access to business, work,
and education opportunities.
There were
discussions on the vulnerabilities of young women towards HIV; the grim
situation in the years when there was no treatment, and the progress made so
far, es...
Today there remains a disproportionate impact of HIV, TB and malaria on women and girls. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and malaria (the Global Fund) is the leading multilateral organisation investing in the three diseases. Since its creation in 2002 the Global Fund has helped to save 27 million lives and supported efforts to dismantle the gender and human rights barriers that fuel the three diseases.
It is the single most important mechanism for donors,
recipient countries, civil society, the private sector and other stakeholders
to unite in their response to these epidemics and has repeatedly proven to
deliver high value for money. To achieve
a fully funded Global Fund that can deliver on closing that gap and working
towards ending the epidemics, strong and ambitious pledges will be needed to reach and go
beyond the $14 billion replenishment target. GFAN believes we will need to reach an 18
billion target, 4 billion more than the Global Fund’s own rep...
What does more investment in the
Global Fund mean for women around the world?
Every US$ 100 million-dollar investment in the Global Fund means:
20,000 additional women on treatment to
prevent passing HIV to their babies. 5.3 million additional mosquito nets could
be distributed and protect first-time mothers, families and young children. save 114,000 lives through programs
supported by the Global Fund. Avert 1.7 million new infections or cases
across the three diseases.
More investment means saving more lives.
#WD2019 #GetBackonTrack #StepUptheFight https://www.globalfundadvocatesnetwork.org/wp-cont...