HIV and AIDS constitute a very serious problem in societies with a high HIV and AIDS prevalence, and require urgent and immediate attention on all levels.

This book explores the current situation with regard to HIV and AIDS in four teacher training institutions in Ethiopia. It aims to analyze their responses to the pandemic and the measures taken to mitigate its impact.

The book shows that while gender inequalities in society generally, and particularly within the education sector, are driving aspects of the HIV epidemic, educational settings can be empowering and bring about change.

The global HIV and AIDS epidemic has affected sub-Saharan Africa more than any other region in the world. AIDS deaths in sub-Saharan Africa account for 72% of AIDS deaths worldwide.

The papers explore some of the factors that are driving the current epidemic in southern Africa. These include the practice of age disparate and intergenerational sex; biological vulnerability of young women; economic empowerment; education and gender-based violence.

In many places girls and young women do not enjoy the basic rights of voting, cannot inherit land, are subject to female genital cutting, and do not have the right to stop unwanted sexual advances or gain justice. This report is about why and how to put girls at the center of development.

In 2005, an estimated 48 million children aged 0-18 years, that is to say 12 percent of all children in sub-Saharan Africa, were orphans, and that number is expected to rise to 53 million by 2010.

Despite the magnitude and dire consequences of the growing number of orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in South Africa, and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, there is insufficient documentation of the strategies deployed to improve the well-being of these children.

A study conducted in KwaZulu Natal suggests that utilizing trained youth caregivers is a feasible approach for reaching orphans and vulnerable children with HIV prevention education and support.

The process of linking sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS needs to work in both directions: this means that traditional sexual and reproductive health services need to integrate HIV/AIDS interventions, and also that programmes set up to address the AIDS epidemic need to integrate more ge