By JULIA DAY, STEPS Centre member

HIV and AIDS is one of the greatest health and development challenges of our time. We have known about HIV, and how to prevent onward transmission, for a quarter of a century, but there are almost 40 million people living with HIV and many more families and communities affected by the disease.

There have been diverse and creative responses to the pandemic and many lessons have been learned. But unproductive and over simplistic debate about poverty, gender and AIDS still dominate popular discourse.

At the STEPS Centre, we are working with partners who believe in the power of evidence in challenging simplistic HIV orthodoxies that often obscure complex and dynamic personal, organisational and political interactions.

HIV is mutable in its ability to exploit biological and structural weaknesses. Our research follows the path of the pandemic to highlight successful pockets of resistance and resilience, particularly pertinent on today, World Aids Day.

Find out more about our work on HIV and development and also have a look at our project on epidemics.