"For a moment, imagine with me. Imagine finding out that you acquired HIV from a boy who did not even know that he was positive and wouldn't believe that you contracted it from him," Akosua Agyepong, a youth leader from Ghana, said at a virtual event with key partners of a new flagship initiative, Education Plus.
Ms Agyepong shared her friend's journey, an 18-year-old struggling to study, access treatment and beat the discrimination that young people living with HIV all too often face in homes, schools, health systems and the community.
This experience, though, is not something of the past. In sub-Saharan Africa every week, an estimated 4500 adolescent girls and young women between the ages of 15 and 24 years acquire HIV, an epidemic that is fuelled by gender injustices and violence. Five in six new HIV infections among adolescents are among girls. Sub-Saharan Africa is also the region with the highest rates of child marriage and teenage pregnancy.
At the event, the UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima, while introducing Education Plus, a new game-changing initiative set up in response to those realities, made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic, implored the audience to reflect on those facts.
"Education Plus brings together governments to demonstrate leadership to make commitments to roll out secondary education that is free and calls on financial institutions and donor countries to support the leadership of African governments. It brings together girls' movements, women's movements, human rights movements, all those who care about the human rights of girls and the right to equal opportunity," Ms Byanyima said.
"This situation is not inevitable. It can change, and it has been changing. We need leadership; we need solidarity; we need partnerships to change it," she added.
Education Plus-led by the heads of UNAIDS, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children's Fund and UN Women-calls for multisectoral commitments to ensure free quality secondary schooling for all girls and boys. It calls for guaranteed violence-free environments, access to comprehensive sexuality education, the fulfilment of sexual and reproductive health and rights and securing the economic empowerment of young women through successful school-to-work transitions.
Ministers of gender, education and health from African countries echoed the importance of the holistic approach of Education Plus, as did representatives of key partner institutions, including the African Union Commission, the African Development Bank, the European Union and the Global Partnership for Education.
Khumbize Kandodo-Chiponda, the Minister of Health of Malawi, drew from her life experience, calling Education Plus a timely intervention. "It is very close to my heart because I was 16 years old when I got pregnant. So, I can put myself in the shoes of our girls, especially in rural areas. I was lucky that I had an opportunity to go back to school, and indeed stayed in school, graduated up to college," she said. "Many of our young girls lack the same opportunity. So, I'm very happy about the Education Plus initiative."
Valentine Uwamariya, Rwanda's Minister of Education, said that secondary education shouldn't be a luxury. "To end the threat to the well-being of adolescent girls, including to protect them against HIV, completion of secondary education is key and quality of education means integrating comprehensive sexuality education, as Rwanda has done in the new competency-based curriculum."
"Every girl deserves the right to an education that is not only inclusive but affordable, available and accessible, as well without fear of judgement and disrespectful treatment, so girls let's power up!" said Hazel Jojo, a peer educator from Zimbabwe.
Vanessa Moungar, the Director of Gender, Women & Civil Society at the African Development Bank, called for smart investments. "We need to keep working with our governments so that investing in girls' education is as much a priority as building roads and bridges."
"We need more of these targeted interventions that tackle the root causes of gender inequality and have a direct pay-off," said Franz Fayot, the Minister for Development Cooperation of Luxembourg. Véronique Tognifodé Mewanou, Benin's Minister of Social Affairs and Microfinance and Chair of the African Union Specialized Technical Committee on Gender Equality, pledged support for the initiative.
In line with the initiative's emphasis on placing the leadership of young women at the centre, the event was moderated by two young leaders, Jennifer Kayombo, from the United Republic of Tanzania, and Lorence Kabasele, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The event was hosted by the Governments of Benin and Luxembourg on 17 March and was held on the sidelines of the 65th session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
Among key backers of the initiative were Pauline Nalova Lyonga Egbe, Minister of Secondary Education, Cameroon, Sarah Mbi Enow Anyang, African Union Commissioner of Education, Science and Technology, and Innovation, Henriette Geiger, Director, Directorate on Human Development, Migration, Governance and Peace at the European Commission, and Alice Albright, the Chief Executive Officer of the Global Partnership for Education.
Education Plus-a chance to fully seize the transformative power of investing in adolescent girls and young women-will be launched during the Generation Equality Forum in Paris, France.
