The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) is the world's largest international source of funding for population and reproductive health programmes.

We work with governments and non-government organisations in some 140 countries, at their request, and with the support of the international community. We support programmes that help women, men and young people: plan their families and avoid unwanted pregnancies; undergo pregnancy and childbirth safely; avoid sexually transmitted infections (STIs) - including HIV/AIDS; and combat violence against women.

Prevention is the centrepiece of the UNFPA's fight against HIV/AIDS. We work to integrate HIV prevention into sexual and reproductive health programming around the world. Prevention includes: promoting safer sexual behaviour among young people, making sure condoms are readily available and widely and correctly used; empowering women to protect themselves and their children, and encouraging men to make a difference.

Action against HIV/AIDS that does not confront gender inequality is doomed to failure. Women are now nearly half of all people infected with HIV, and discrimination, poverty and gender-based violence help fuel the epidemic. The situation is most alarming in sub-Saharan Africa, where women make up 57% of those living with HIV. Young African women aged 15-24 are three times more likely to be infected than are their male counterparts.

Without AIDS strategies that specifically focus on women, there can be no global progress in fighting the disease. Women know less than men about how to prevent infection and what they do know is often rendered useless by the discrimination and violence they face. Promoting concrete actions that address the reality of women’s lives and help decrease their vulnerability to HIV is the only way forward. We must reduce violence against women, ensure greater access to HIV prevention and treatment services and protect their property rights.

“The ABC approach - Abstain, Be faithful, use Condoms - is not a sufficient means of prevention for women and adolescent girls,” says UNFPA Executive Director Thoraya Obaid. “Abstinence is meaningless to women who are coerced into sex. Faithfulness offers little protection to wives whose husbands have several partners or were infected before marriage. And condoms require the cooperation of men.”

The social and economic empowerment of women is key. The epidemic will not be reversed unless governments provide the resources needed to ensure women’s right to sexual and reproductive health.

We are proud to be part of the Women to Women project because awareness and funds are crucial to helping prevent women from being infected, and to reversing the AIDS pandemic.

For more information, please visit our website: www.unfpa.org