The U.S. government has spent upwards of $1.3 billion on abstinence education in Africa since 2005, but a recent report indicates it's had little or no effect on the sexual behavior.

Presenting his findings at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections  last month, Stanford Medical School's Nathan Lo examined the efficiency of the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief  (PEPFAR).

PEPFAR was enacted in 2003 by President George W. Bush and provided billions to treat Africans with AIDS, but... the Republican-controlled House included a provision that one-third of the prevention money had to go to programs that encouraged abstinence.

The provision was a compromise between Christian conservatives and liberals in order to pass the funding.

Comparing 22 African nations, Lo found that the 14 that received PEPFAR funding—and its abstinence and fidelity-based instruction—showed no difference in sexual behavior from eight countries that did not.

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Lo examined age of first sexual experience, number of sexual partners and other benchmarks.

His report was lauded by many attendees, including representatives from Doctors Without Borders and PEPFAR itself.  A PEPFAR staffer indicated the group has cut the $47 million it spends on abstinence ed to $21 million.

The findings mirror what researchers see in the U.S., where states that mandate abstinence-only education have the highest rates of teen pregnancy.

Yet 26 states still require sex-ed classes to stress abstinence as the best approach.