The Institute for Youth Development (IYD) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that promotes a consistent, comprehensive risk avoidance message to youth for the leading harmful risk behaviors. IYD may be contacted at (703) 433-1640 or by writing P.O. Box 16560, Washington, DC 20041.

President of Institute for Youth Development Tells Congress to Follow World’s Major AIDS/HIV Success -- Uganda

House Subcommittee on Health & the Environment to Craft Global AIDS Legislation

WASHINGTON, DC -- March 20, 2003 – Today, Shepherd Smith, president of the Institute for Youth Development and board member of the Children’s AIDS fund, will tell the House Subcommittee on Health & the Environment that the U.S. should follow the President’s lead and direct their attention to the highly-successful model Uganda has used for its AIDS/HIV program.

“Uganda has a declining HIV infection rate, while the infection rate in many African countries is continuing to rise,” said Smith. “In the U.S., the rate is at best stabilized and shows indications that it is increasing.”

“Uganda’s success is especially impressive when you look at what it spends on healthcare,” said Smith. “In the U.S., we spend roughly 40 times more per capita on AIDS than what Uganda spends on all healthcare programs. The President has it right. Uganda can teach us many important lessons.”

As a member of the U.S. Delegation to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS), Smith has traveled extensively to Africa. During 2002, he led two U.S. delegations to Uganda that included government officials, researchers and philanthropists.

During the same year, he also visited South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique and the Ivory Coast as a member of a delegation led by Health & Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson.

“Having traveled to the southern regions of Africa in the early '90s, we were not prepared to see the rates of HIV rising in the countries we visited last year,” said Smith. “When we visited Mozambique, South Africa and Botswana we saw that their HIV incidence rates are continuing to climb. We had to ask ourselves why. On our return we looked at data throughout the entire continent and found that Uganda was the glaring exception to these rising rates.”

“Much of Uganda’s success can be attributed to the promotion of a traditional message of encouraging young people to be abstinent until marriage and then asking those who are married to be faithful to their partners.,” said Smith. “Little emphasis is placed on condom usage. This has become known as the ABC message. Uganda has had some success with highly-targeted condom programs, but has had no documented success in broader condom campaigns.”

Uganda's message contrasts sharply with the messages given out in the southern part of Africa and in the U.S. where HIV programs largely rely on a primary message of condom usage with no emphasis on abstinence and faithfulness. This approach ultimately increases new infection rates because it does nothing to discourage multiple partners.

“We should remember that the biggest predictor of any sexually-transmitted disease is the number of lifetime partners,” said Smith. “The more partners, the more risk. Fewer partners, less risk. One uninfected partner in a faithful relationship, virtually no risk.”

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The Institute for Youth Development
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