Introduction

With the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief U.S. Five-Year Global HIV/AIDS Strategy as its starting point, this document provides further guidance on implementing the "ABC" - Abstinence, Be Faithful, and correct and consistent Condom use-approach to HIV/AIDS prevention, including definitions, implementation considerations, and clarification of activities the Emergency Plan will fund.

To limit the progression of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, there must be a dramatic reduction in new infections. The Emergency Plan is committed to evidence-based best practices in prevention interventions to achieve the Plan's prevention objectives. Interventions in countries such as Kenya, the Dominican Republic, Thailand, Cambodia, and most notably, Uganda, indicate that promoting behaviors aimed at risk avoidance and risk reduction will likely avert the largest proportion of new infections and reduce the spread of HIV. ^1,2

The measurable declines achieved through local behavior change efforts in these countries, and elsewhere, highlight another commitment of the Emergency Plan- that interventions be informed by, and responsive to, local needs, local epidemiology, and distinctive social and cultural patterns, as well as coordinated with the HIV/AIDS strategies of host governments. It is with these two principles in mind that the Emergency Plan applies the ABC approach in its HIV prevention strategy.

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