Young women in their child-bearing years are the new face of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. They stand at the forefront of a "generalized" epidemic in which infection spreads from narrow high-risk groups to the population at large. They are the wives of at-risk men and the mothers of children born with the virus. India, Vietnam, and China, stand on the brink. Foreign-funded HIV-prevention programs can avert their fall, and Japan and the United States are the world's largest donors. Little, however, is known about how to achieve this and social science research on HIV in Asia is thin. My project applies a comparative case study methodology to explain the failure of foreign aid to stem the tide of HIV I AIDS in Asia. Combining the literatures on foreign aid policy formulation in donors, health and foreign aid in recipients, and new anthropological work on gender and HIV, my project develops an innovative approach to understanding HIV and its relationship to foreign aid. In so doing, my work draws the comparative study of the United States and Japan into global perspective.