Learning Session on HIV-Affected Adolescent Mothers and Their Children in Sub-saharan Africa

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS convened a learning session with experts to address the neglect of HIV-affected adolescent mothers and their children. This learning session brought together 43 global thought leaders from the HIV, sexual and reproductive health, early childhood development, poverty reduction, rights, gender, exclusion and mental health sectors to develop an evidence-informed advocacy agenda for HIV-affected adolescent mothers and their children. The session objectives were:

• to identify gaps and consolidate key scientific and programmatic evidence on the scale and nature of the needs of HIV-affected adolescent mothers and their children and proven solutions to address them.
• to establish a set of advocacy recommendations for changes for governments, donors, policy makers and civil society.

This report presents the content of the meeting as well as draft advocacy recommendations working groups created during the learning session.This is a resource to impact programmatic work intended mitigate the vulnerabilities and risks specific to adolescent mothers and their children in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, compounded by challenges such as limited access to treatment, gender inequality, poverty, violence, exclusion, and inadequate education.