What Works for Women and Girls

Organization of the DocumentThis document covers the evidence for gender-sensitive programming for women and girls. Thechapters are organized under three broad sections: what works to prevent infection, includingin women, young women and women with special prevention needs, such as sex workers andinjecting drug users and female partners of injecting drug users; what works for women andgirls living with HIV, such as treatment, meeting sexual and reproductive health needs, andpreventing perinatal transmission; and what works to support women and girls, includingstrengthening the enabling environment through, among other things, addressing gendernorms, violence against women and stigma and discrimination and promoting women’s legalrights and access to education and livelihoods. Supporting women and girls also includesproviding care and support, OVC programs and structuring health services to meet women’sneeds.Each chapter in the document includes an introduction, followed by a list of interventionsthat work or are promising followed by the evidence to support the interventions and theremaining gaps in research, programming or evaluation. The document also includes a selectionof the most recent clinical manuals and resources for program design, and references(citations for each study and web sites, where possible). In some areas, the evidence is quitelimited because few evaluations have been conducted. The Gaps sections of the document areimportant because they include a number of expert recommendations or recommended interventionsbased on studies measuring knowledge or attitudes that are expected to work but havenot been formally evaluated.This document serves the unique function of bringingThis document serves theunique function of bringing allof these topics together to providea full range of gender-sensitiveprogramming for womenand girls.all of these topics together to provide a full range of gendersensitiveprogramming for women and girls.It is very important to note that each of these chaptersaddresses topics that, themselves, could be the focus ofmultiple books. The authors have endeavored to cover themajor evidence in each of these areas about what works forwomen; however, more nuanced information about thesetopics can be found in the myriad references and websitesdevoted to them, some of which are referenced in this document.The document is not designed to provide complete recommendations on programdesign for particular topics, but rather serves the unique function of bringing the evidence forall of these topics together to provide a fuller picture of the range of gender-sensitive programmingfor women and girls.32 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION