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Crosscutting Issues

In seeking to promote an enabling environment for health, the USAID | Health Policy Initiative is mandated to devise appropriate policies and practices to address barriers to health service scale-up, access, quality, and use posed by three crosscutting issues: poverty, gender inequality, and lack of human rights. The initiative works with government, civil society, and private sector entities to design and implement policy responses that will:

  • Ensure equitable access for the poor and reach those most in need with services;
     
  • Address gender inequalities to enable women and girls and men and boys to obtain and use the information and services they need for better health; and
     
  • Protect human rights-especially as they pertain to the rights of women and the poor as well as reduction of HIV-related stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV and others affected by the epidemic.

Opening of GBV and HIV workshop
East Africa Regional Manager Angeline Siparo, speaks during the opening of a regional African workshop for religious leaders on gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS. Credt: Britt Herstad, USAID | Health Policy Initiative TO1