Linkages between Gender, AIDS, and Development

Implications for U.S. Policy

Global health, development, and gender are now understood to be dynamic and interlinked components of U.S. foreign policy. Given the emerging policy and programmatic debates on how these three domains are to be integrated to bring the greatest returns, especially in improving the health and welfare of women and girls, the CSIS Global Health Policy Center hosted a conference entitled “Linkages between Gender, AIDS, and Development: Implications for U.S. Policy” on June 11, 2010. The conference brought civil society activists from South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, and the United States together with representatives from international nongovernmental organizations, the United Nations, and U.S. officials from the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Department’s Office of Global Women’s Issues, and the Congress.

This is an unprecedented opportunity to develop strategies and implement programs that make a difference in the lives of women and girls and to address head on the complexities that program linkages and multisectoral programming present. The report recommends that, to be successful, the U.S. government should: systematically hold implementing government agencies accountable to promote multisectoral linkages; put in place better measurement tools to track progress in addressing women’s health outcomes and achieving structural change and identify intermediate steps to capture impact; and set out long-range plans to build sustainability, encourage innovation, and ensure U.S. global leadership.

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Janet Fleischman
Senior Associate (Non-resident), Global Health Policy Center