When the demand for ‘evidence’ is unscientific: An example from HIV/AIDS

The holy grail of evidence has become all pervasive in the global HIV response. The drive for universalising knowledge on what works, derived from the emergence of ‘high quality’ evidence for biomedical prevention technologies, is now so entrenched in policy that sensitive appraisals of the ways in which interventions are engaged with and made to work in different contexts are being overlooked.