Question: What do you do with a $100 million U.S. government program that isn’t working?  The answer; you fix it.  Abstinence and be-faithful programs for youth in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) are not meeting the needs of sexually active and at-risk youth, according to a government-commissioned evaluation that took place in March.  Eight months later, no plan has been put into place to address these flaws—endangering the millions of young people these programs are supposed to help protect. 

In July, the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Henry Waxman; Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Tom Lantos; and member of the exclusive House Appropriations Committee, Congresswoman Barbara Lee—all champions of evidence-based HIV prevention—sent a letter to Mark Dybul, US Global AIDS Coordinator at the Department of State, asking how PEPFAR planned to respond to the serious concerns raised in this report.  Dybul’s response gave no indication of a plan to address the gaps the evaluation found and offered no evidence of the effectiveness of these abstinence and be-faithful programs.  Last month, Reps. Waxman, Lantos and Lee wrote to Mark Dybul again, reiterating the need for a plan to address the shortfalls in PEPFAR’s youth programming. How many letters have to be written when people's lives and wellbeing are at stake? 

For every person who gains access to HIV treatment, six more become infected with this deadly disease. PEPFAR cannot afford to support anything less than sound, evidence-based prevention programs if we truly intend  to stop this epidemic.  There simply isn’t enough funding to spend $100 million on a program with harmful flaws.  While PEPFAR’s administrators write letters, young people are at risk of contracting HIV because they don’t have access to the education and supplies that they can use to protect themselves.

Through programs funded by PEPFAR, the U.S. has made a historic commitment to the prevention, care and treatment of HIV/AIDS.  But this financial commitment is dwarfed in size by the global need for these services.  PEPFAR has a responsibility to ensure that all their programs, including abstinence/be-faithful programs, are addressing the needs of their target audience— youth, including those who are sexually active.  If programs cannot meet this basic requirement, it’s time to find a more effective investment for U.S. dollars.