As the leading authority for health within the United Nations, the World Health Organization (WHO) is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.
Specifically, the WHO is the normative body for developing guidelines for HIV prevention and treatment. In order to achieve and sustain HIV/AIDS epidemic control, PEPFAR works to ensure all countries rapidly adopt all relevant WHO policies and fully implement them at scale. This is critical for addressing key impediments to health care access by the most vulnerable and poor, such as stigma and discrimination; formal and informal fees for health services; and sexual violence, including the alarming rates of violence faced by those ages 9-14 years.