THE PROGRAMME

The Need

If, by 2025, millions of people in Africa are still becoming infected with HIV, experts suggest that it will not be because there was no choice. It will not be because there is no understanding of the consequences, not because it was inevitable. It will be because the lessons of the first 20 years of the epidemic were not learned and applied and because there was insufficient will to change behaviour and halt the forces driving the AIDS epidemic in Africa.

The extent of the epidemic and the future of Africa will largely depend on how we respond and invest into sub-Saharan Africa’s young people now. African youth face a potentially devastating future. Incidence rates among teenagers in most countries continue to show increases from year to year. This suggests that unless there is a dramatic intensification of effort aimed at young people over the next five to ten years, half of our youth will be infected with HIV. A generation of young Africans are in danger of growing up without education, love, or any positive role models in their lives. Not only has AIDS robbed youth of parents but it has also decimated the continent’s most productive age segment, its skilled workforce and pool of leaders.