Improving the mentorship of AGYW in HIV prevention programmes

Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) in Sub-Saharan Africa remain disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic. 

Females aged 15-24 years account for one in five new HIV infections in the region, despite making up only 10% of the population. 

A think tank initiated by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2019 revealed insights across a number of projects that mentoring is seen as a key element of HIV prevention and AGYW programming. However, little guidance and documentation on selection, supervision and training of mentors for these programmes existed at the time.

Genesis was contracted by the foundation to assist in providing support to the assessment of PEPFAR’s DREAMS and the Global Fund’s mentoring component of their adolescent girls and young women’s HIV prevention programmes. 

Through this scan we collected data on how these programmes recruit, train and supervise mentors to meet the programmes’ objectives. We also developed a clear understanding of who and what mentors are, which allowed for refinement of their role and a clearer understanding how they assist these programmes in reducing rates of HIV incidence among AGYW.

The output from this work has been used to update DREAMS guidance and inform the COP21 guidance note. Additionally, findings from this work resulted in an updated DREAMS definition of a mentor to capture the broad role of a mentor. The findings also provided insights on how the existing DREAMS theory of change can be updated to better reflect the all-encompassing role that a mentor plays.

Genesis hosted a best practices for mentoring in AGYW HIV prevention programming webinar in April 2022 with colleagues from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Population Council, Final Mile, Rise Community Aid Program (RICAP), the Henry Jackson Foundation and TBHIVCare. This webinar shared recent research, evidence and best practices for the use of mentoring in AGYW HIV prevention programming. The slides presented in this webinar are available here and the Q&A session is here.

Best practice in HIV prevention for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW)

Understanding Mentorship for Adolescent Girls & Young Women