Across the hardest-hit countries of sub-Saharan Africa in particular, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is causing immense distress and impoverishment to children.
Figures for the numbers of children orphaned by AIDS are commonly taken as an indicator of this impact and some 12 million African children are estimated to have lost one or both parents to the disease (UNICEF 2007). This figure serves as a headline, but in many respects it both misrepresents and understates the actual magnitude of the problem. The challenge for policy is not to reach 12 million individual children in need of assistance, but to design policies and interventions that address the diverse needs of a range of poor and vulnerable children in societies affected by AIDS, which is a far more ambitious task
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This article comes from the IDS Bulletin 39.5 (2008) Introduction: Children, AIDS and Development Policy
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