HIV/AIDS and Young People

Young people (1) are among the most vulnerable groups facing the AIDS pandemic. UNAIDS estimates that 50 percent of all new HIV infections world-wide occur among people under 25 and that over 30 percent of the 42 million people living with HIV/AIDS today are aged between 15 and 24 (2) . Young people also bear the consequences of HIV/AIDS in various other ways, such as the withdrawal from school to compensate for loss of household income. Moreover, an estimated 15 million children under 18 living today have been orphaned due to AIDS (3).

The 2001 UN General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) endorsed a number of goals aimed specifically at young people, including:

• To guarantee access, by 2005, for at least 90 percent of young people to the information, education and services necessary to develop the life skills required to reduce their vulnerability to HIV infection;
• In accordance with the ICPD+5 goal, to reduce the HIV prevalence among young people aged 15-24 in the most affected countries by 25 percent by 2005.

The financial resources employed to realise the ICPD and UNGASS goals are monitored by the RF Project. The project database provides information about the origin and destination of funds and the general trend in financing projects and programmes directed at HIV/AIDS and young people. A search on key words related to young people and adolescents in the titles and descriptions of all STD/HIV/AIDS projects / programmes (4) yielded almost 600 cases over the period 1996 to 2003.

Increased focus on young people

The increased attention to young people, in particular adolescents (people aged 10 to 19 years), in recent years is reflected in the trend on STD/HIV/AIDS spending. Figure 1 shows the increased resources that have been mobilised since 1996. The total reported expenditures in 2003 amounted to over US$ 34 million, whereas in 1996 the financial effort in the field of STD/HIV/AIDS and young people was hardly noticeable. This period reveals a five-fold increase in overall annual spending on STD/HIV/AIDS, while the financial support to specific youth projects and programmes increased 21-fold.

Attention to young people is donor driven

Figure 1 also shows that the largest segment of resources made available for STD/HIV/AIDS activities directed at young people was mobilised by donors. The increased funds channelled to this category of activities in recent years by developing countries and countries in transition, however, reflect both expanded local budgets for STD/HIV/AIDS and greater priority to youth.

Figure 1: Expenditures on STD/HIV/AIDS activities directed to young people 1996 - 2003 (5)

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Private foundations generated over half (58 percent) of all donor funds available for STD/HIV/AIDS activities aiming at young people in the period 1996-2003; OECD/DAC governments nearly a quarter (23 percent). The UN system accounted for 11 percent of all funds, but it has increased its financial support annually since the 2001 UNGASS and provided approximately 22 percent of all donor funds in 2003. A lion’s share of the mobilised resources was directed towards activities in sub-Saharan Africa (72%), followed by Asia and the Pacific (15%), Latin America and the Caribbean (8%).

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Concluding Remarks

In recent years attention to STD/HIV/AIDS and young people has increased considerably. However, the mobilisation of funds for these activities remains primarily a donor issue.

The RF project acknowledges the need to address the position of young generations in the context of HIV/AIDS. The annual RF survey will, therefore, include specific questions related to young people from the 2005 survey round onwards.

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