The executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Winnie Byanyima, has said secondary education will help end AIDS in Africa.

“Secondary education offers protection to adolescent girls and young women from HIV—with reductions in HIV incidence among girls who complete secondary education by as much as 1/3 to 1/2 in some countries,” she said on Friday.

The Education Plus Initiative, a high-level political advocacy drive to accelerate actions and investments to prevent HIV, was launched as a joint commitment of UNAIDS, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children's Fund and UN Women at the Generation Equality Forum in July this year.

This initiative is centred on the empowerment of adolescent girls and young women and the achievement of gender equality in sub-Saharan Africa—with secondary education as the strategic entry point for providing the multi-sectoral plus package. 

It calls for free and quality secondary education for all girls and boys in sub-Saharan Africa by 2025; universal access to comprehensive sexuality education; fulfilment of sexual and reproductive health and rights; freedom from gender-based and sexual violence; school-to-work transitions, and economic security and empowerment.