(Part 2) Interactive Multi-Stakeholder Hearing for the 2026 High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS

Good afternoon, colleagues.
We will be starting in a minute, so we'll appreciate if everyone will kindly settle down.
Thank you.
That's okay.
We can start late.
Colleagues, kindly take your seats.
Good afternoon, everyone.
Welcome, and we shall now start panel three.
My name is Yves Miel Hugo Zuñiga from the Philippines and I am a member of the task force.
I also represent United for Global Mental Health and the Global Mental Action Network, and I'll be your moderator for panel three entitled Adré structural inequalities and promoting equity and inclusion in the HIV response, including removal of legal barriers and shrinking civic space.
This panel comes at a critical moment for the global HIV response.
While we have made enormous scientific and public health progress over the years, many communities continue to face persistent structural barriers that prevent equitable access to services and support.
As many settings, stigma, discrimination, criminalization, shrinking civic space, conflicts, and fragile health systems continue to undermine health outcomes and place already marginalized communities at even greater risk.
We also know that these structural inequalities do not only affect access to HIV services, but also deeply impact people's mental health and well being.
Young people, key populations, people living with HIV, people in prisons, people impacted by conflicts, indigenous peoples and communities in fragile settings are often navigating layered experience of stigma, violence, exclusion, displacement, uncertainty, and economic hardships.
Yet many areas of support including legal and social protection, access to mental services, and other interventions to overcome structural and systemic barriers remain severely under prioritized and underfunded within many HIV responses globally.
Today's discussion, therefore, is not only about addressing these barriers, but also about building more inclusive, people centered and integrated systems of care that recognize the full realities of people's lives.
This includes ensuring access to stigma for HIV services, alongside mental health support, social protection, and safe civic spaces for communities to organize, participate, and lead.
We will hear perspectives today from advocates, researchers, practitioners, and community leaders working directly with these affected populations, including people living with HIV, key populations, young people, indigenous peoples and communities in fragile and humanitarian settings.
Each of our speakers will have 4 minutes to speak.
After which we will proceed to hearing interventions from the floor.
Participants may express their interest to speak, starting now.
Please note that interventions on the floor for these thematic panel will only be 2 minutes and we shall strictly enforce it.
Thank you for joining us today.
And to begin our discussion, I am pleased to introduce our first speaker, Mr.
Richard Lusimbo from the Uganda Key Populations Consortium.
Richard is a Ugandan Global Health and Human rights advocate, the founder and Director General of the Uganda Key Populations Consortium, and co founder of the Global Black Gay Men Connect.
He works on HIV, equity, civic space, and community led accountability.
As we start this discussion, Richard, from your experience in Uganda and across community led HIV advocacy, How are punitive laws, stigma, discrimination, and shrinking civic space affecting access to HIV services for key populations and other marginalized communities, and what concrete commitments should member states make in the 2026 Political Declaration? Over to Richard.
Thank you so much, the moderator, and then I also speak and stand on the protocol observed earlier this morning.
The central point I want to make is that the structural inqualities are not abstract.
For communities on the front lines of HIV, they determine whether someone can walk into a clinic safely, whether a peer educator can do outreach, whether community organization can operate.
Also, whether a person living with HIV can remain on treatment, and whether violations are reported or hidden.
In Uganda, in many contexts, penetrative law, stigma, discrimination, misinformation, and civic space restrictions are creating real barriers to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support.
These barriers are especially acute for key populations, adults and girls and young women, young people, people in prisons, indigenous peoples, people in humanitarian settings, and communities already facing poverty and exclusion.
I want to speak to three issues, and I really hope the states could take this on as we look forward to the 2026 political declaration.
Number one, we need to address legal and structural barriers when it comes to HIV.
Penetrative laws and hostile policy environment not only create fear, interrupt services, they disorganize people from seeking testing, prep, PEP, condoms, and lubricants, SDI services, mental health, support, and treatment.
They also make it hard for community organizations to reach people who are already underserved.
The HIV response must therefore name legal reform and stigma measures and protect those who are facing discrimination and making it as essential HIV interventions.
Second, we need to address issues around shrinking civic space that weakens the entire HIV architecture.
Community led organizations are often the first responders when services are disrupted.
They provide referrals, document human rights violations, support adherence, accompany survivors of violence, and generate evidence through community led monitoring.
When civic space shrink, the HIV response loses its early warning system.
Communities stop reporting violations, peer networks become less visible, and programs lose access to the very populations they're meant to serve.
Three, the 2026 Political Declaration must include measurable commitments.
Since morning, my colleagues have been speaking to this, but let me add my voice.
The political declaration should not only repeat broad language on equity, it should include clear commitments.
Two, remove penetrative laws and discriminatory legal and policy barriers, protect civic space for community led organization, Finance community led monitoring, peer led service delivery, legal aid, and rapid response, guarantee meaningful protection and participation of key populations and affected communities in national planning, implementation, and accountability.
Ensure that HIV services remain accessible in fragile humanitarian and political restrictive contexts.
In closing, if we are serious about ending AIDS as a public health threat, we must protect the people, organizations, and civic spaces that make HIV response work.
Equity must be financed, legal barriers must be removed, and communities must be treated as eco as of the response, not merely as beneficiaries.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you, Ric Chart, for your intervention.
We now turn to doctor Mo Elvin.
Doctor Mao is the National Director of Sun Community Health, Myanmar with more than 21 years of experience in public health.
She leads initiatives promoting equitable, integrated and people centered healthcare through strong community engagement and private sector collaboration, focusing on improving access, reducing inequalities, and supporting underserved and marginalized populations across Myanmar.
She's also a member of the Global Mental Action Network with over 10,000 members from 170 countries.
Doctor Mo, how can the global HIV response better support locally led community models in fragile and conflict affected settings like Myanmar, while also ensuring that physical and mental services, social protection, and stigma free care are fully integrated into HIV response? Doctor Mo, the floor is yours.
Hello.
Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity for the two stakeholder hearings.
I'm honored to share the perspective from Myanmar, particularly from the experience of the local organization, working mainly with the private sector provider, general practitioner, community volunteers to support the vulnerable and ends population.
Affected by the TB and HIV.
In our Myanmar context, in our Myanmar context, many key population remain difficult to reach through the conventional health system due to the stigma, mobility, mobility, economic disruption, and concern around the confidentiality and disclosure.
Many individual fear that revealing their HIV status can push them to the discrimination and also the social exclusion, loss of employment, and safety risks.
As a result, many people remain hidden from the former system, and also the delay seeking services.
You already know that many community in Myanmar are continue facing the severe economic pressure, displacement, and wider impact of the conflict situation happening right now, especially young people are particularly affected by the uncertainty and also the reduced livelihood opportunity and growing growing concern on the risks associated with the recruitment and force involvement to the different group.
The humanitarian and health care workers are also operating under the increasingly difficult environment, safety situation, movement restriction, and also the shortage of the manpower and fragmented coordination mechanism, and also the Also, the supply chain disruption continue impact the service continuity referral and as to the access to the magazine and continuity of the services.
So today, the community in Myanmar are making the decision making the daily decision between the health care and their personal safety, housing, and income.
That Myanmar, we do not have the former social protection system for the vulnerable population.
So this community rely heavily on the local organization, community led network, and also for the to cope with the crisis and maintain the continuity of the services.
Based on our experience, the building on the locally embedded private sector network and community provider can reach to the hidden key population and key population in the urban, peri urban and rural and fragile and conflict affected setting.
The building the good partnership can continue the service continuity and reduce the service gap.
However, we need there is the challenges remain.
Local led organization are increasingly facing the unpredictable funding gap despite their critical role in sustaining the health services and maintaining the relationship due to the vulnerability population.
We also seeing a lot of the barrier associated with the stigma and discrimination.
This barrier discourage many people to seek care from the to seek care from the timely services so that we think based on our learning, we think that we need to the strengthening the public system, private providers and community network in the HIV response.
And also the we also need to we also need to ensure the sustainable and flexible funding support for the local led and community response mechanism.
And that is the mental health is another area that is that critical attention is required and inclusive of the HIV responses because there are people living with HIV affected by the HIV, particularly in Myanmar are also facing the stress anxiety, trauma, insecurity, and also a lot of the discrimination.
We need to integrate mental health, HIV response, and also integrate mental health, HIV response, and also to as an integrated approach.
Thank you, doctor Kindi wrap up your intervention, please.
Thank you.
Yes.
Yeah.
So to wrap up, we believe that the strengthening the private sector network and building the capacity of the local leadership can continue to support the HIV affected community to get the stigma free and integrated health care services with the dignity.
Thank you.
Thank you, doctor Moen, for joining us despite being late where you are.
It is actually almost 2:00 A.M.
On that side of the globe.
We just want to recognize the sacrifices that civil societies make to show up and speak up for their communities in this time.
Next is Jennifer Sherwood, Director of Research and Public Policy at AmfAar.
Jennifer has been a significant figure in the fight against HIV, particularly in the context of global health and policy.
Her work at Amfhar is focused on improving gender equity in global HIV policy and programming.
Her research has been pivotal in understanding the impact of the global GAG on HIV funding and the importance of trans inclusion in the National HIV Aids strategic plans.
Her efforts have been recognized in major publications that have influenced global health discussions.
To Jennifer, can you talk about the programmatic gaps that have been left by recent funding disruptions to the HIV response and how are these influencing equity in the HIV response and how might we address these gaps? Jennifer, please.
Thank you so much, Ives, and thank you so much for the opportunity to speak at this important stakeholder hearing.
The consequences of the rapid funding cuts and policy change in 2025 had extreme consequences for the HIV response, especially for PEPFAR, which is the world's largest bilateral program for HIV.
In one of AMFAR's recent studies of more than 160 PEPFAR implementing partners in 46 countries that we conducted with funders concerned about aids, data, et cetera, and Johns Hopkins University, We found that it was not only the funding cuts that are impacting service delivery, but also the ideologically based policy changes that are shifting the focus away from key populations, resulting in growing inequities in service delivery and a near total abandonment of structural interventions.
We documented that while 52% of PEPFAR implementing partners suffered a grant termination, that these were more likely to be locally based organizations, that 77% of implementing partners were asked to comply with an additional US policy that restricted their organization's activities.
We found that 71% of those organizations who had previously been providing a key population service had permanently stopped at least one service, and these were most commonly key population specific outreach services, gender based violence services, or other structural support like stigma mitigation, mental health, or economic empowerment.
Our research found that declines existed across the HIV care continuum, but I want to highlight the important fact that these cuts were not felt equally for all populations.
For example, we found that among organizations who reported disruptions to their prep programs, 43% said that they stopped prep for transgender populations and men who have sex with men.
This is compared to 25% who stopped prep for pregnant and breastfeeding women.
Any decline in prep is unacceptable, but the near total cessation of prevention services for the most vulnerable is a human rights and epidemiological emergency.
We have to be honest about the conditions that we're moving into.
PEPFAR spending on condoms and lubricants declined by 93% in 2025.
Psychosocial support, food and nutrition support, education assistance, and economic strengthening.
These are the kinds of support that keep people engaged in care and prevention was cut by nearly 70%.
The baseline that we have been working from where we can deliver prep on top of an already functioning prevention system to further reduce incidence isn't the baseline anymore.
We are opening the space for HIV to research by reducing the services and leaving populations more at risk.
At the same time, we are dismantling the data systems specific enough to detect that resurgence, which further entrenches the inequities that we have spent two decades trying to close.
We have to respond.
This means investing in community led programs, key population programming, and local organizations.
It means expanding, not limiting prep access based on identity, and it means a steadfast commitment to naming and confronting the policies that keep populations out of care.
Thank you.
Thank you, Jennifer.
We now move to miss Wendy Ramirez of Montana D Luz.
Wendy is an HIV activist from Honduras, born with HIV.
She grew up at Montana Duluth where she began her advocacy through an HIV educational program called Charlo Lz.
She has educated thousands across Honduras on HIV, rights, treatment, access, and prevention, and holds a degree in community development and business.
Joining us online, Wendy, what are the health challenges facing young people living with HIV in Honduras and how can global entities support those within a fragile health care system? Hello, everyone.
Can you hear me? Yes, we can.
Thank you.
I'm a young woman living with HIV from Honduras because of lack of knowledge and lack of resources.
I was facing a children home when I was 2-years-old.
Many young people like me in my country end up in a children's home because of both the healthcare system and the stigma associated with HIV.
Some of the young people I grew up with have family members who will not interact with them because of their HIV status.
In Honduras and in my own experience, it is common for people to be denied work or accepted in university because of their pursued status.
My life growing up there inspired me to evolve to get Education about HIV.
As part of the program Charlls Loose, I travel around the country to educate the public about HIV, how it is transmitted, where to access treatment, and what you write as as someone living with HIV.
In rural areas where we focus, healthcare is extremely limited.
People living with HIV in Honduras have to travel very far away to pick up their medication.
Because of stigma, people travel to hospitals that are even further there than on to pick up their medication so they will not see someone they know.
In my experience, I have educated many people who believe that HIV is something that can be transmitted by kissing, hugging, or even sharing plates.
We have to meet people where they are, which often means traveling to rural parts of the country to focus on undeserved population.
We cannot make progress in the fight against HIV without education.
In my work with Charlo Loose, we provide a very clear demonstration that describes how the virus is transmitted and how it's not transmitted.
We do the entire demonstration without any written words because many people don't know how to write or how to read, but it's very important that they can understand it on health.
Many people are right to hospital, very worrying because they have been told they have been exposed to HIV without knowing what is it.
My word helps people understand that HIV is something that can be treated with medication and that we can have a very happy future.
From the perspective of the young woman, HIB responses must integrate sexual and reproductive health, protection from gender violence, and mental health services for adolescent girls.
Sexual health is a taboo subject in Honduras, especially in faith spaces.
How can I be open about conversation about sexually and mental health if there is no safe place for us? It is essential that both public schools and the S find ways to be part of the HIB response.
My call to you is to include young woman in these conversations, do not ignore us, listen to our stories, and prioritize us because we cannot end HIB without the support of government agencies and faith based spaces.
If church leaders do not believe in us, how can we expect the general population to change their mind? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Wendy, and thanks to our panelists for your reflections and interventions.
At this stage, we now open the floor for interventions and a kind reminder to everyone to please keep them for 2 minutes.
Note that your mic will blink in red indicating that you only have 30 seconds left and have to wrap up your intervention.
To open our floor, we now call member state from Brazil.
Thank you, Chair.
Brazil, thanks for this hearing and for the participation of all stakeholders, civil society organizations, and in particularly representatives of key populations and broader communities.
Your contributions are essential to informing our work towards the high level meeting.
Brazil has a longstanding commitment to protecting the human rights of people living with HIV AIDS.
At a time of setbacks, countries must remain steadfast in our commitment to ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
Achieving this goal requires equitable access to new HIV treatment technologies.
In Brazil and globally, structural factors such as income, education, gender, race, and place of birth continue to shape health outcomes and life expectancy.
As we know, social injustice kills on a grand scale, and this is particularly evident in the HIV and AIDS response.
Member States in New York have just concluded negotiations on a resolution entitled Global Health and Foreign Policy, accelerating the fight Against diseases driven by the social determinants of health, presented by Brazil, France, Indonesia, Senegal, South Africa, Norway, and Thailand.
Among other topics, this resolution to be considered by the General Assembly on May 20th, We'll underscore that meaningful, inclusive, and diverse social participation is essential for equitable, transparent, and accountable health systems.
It will also encourage member states to strengthen inclusive and meaningful social participation in health related decision making while addressing diseases driven by social determinants of health.
We hope this spirit will guide our work towards the high level meeting and the commitments ahead.
Thank you.
Thank you, Brazil.
Our next intervention will come from ICWLAC.
Kindly press the mic.
Thank you.
Kindly raise your hand.
Hello.
Chair and distinguished delegates, I speak on behalf of Latin American, a Russian that has made important legal progress, but where many people are still excluded.
We cannot end HIV if we do not address the deep inequalities that continue to shape our societies.
In orsian stigma is not only a social problem, it is also a political barrier.
Some Laos still criminally say HIV transmission.
Gender inequality remains widespread and many countries still do not have laws that recognize gender identity.
The realities push populations away from health service.
We are also concerned about shrinking civic space.
Community led organizations and civil society groups have long sustained the HIV response, especially where governments do not reach.
Today, many face restrict policies and funding cuts without strong unsafe civil society, there can be no effective HIV response.
Latin American is also facing a mature immigration crisis.
Migrants and refugees living with HIV often lose access to treatment as they cross borders.
Indigenous people and afro descent and communities continue to face barriers when service are not proved in way that respect their language and cultures.
Equity will not come from more bureaucracy or from removing agreed language on key populations, women and gender.
It will come from political to repeal laws that punish public health, P human rights, defender and support women's leadership.
Ensure that gender in the in the defi or immigration status doesn't determinate who lives and who dies.
The HIV response must be more than a medical intervention.
It must be an act of social justice.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, ICWL LAC.
Our next intervention will come from member state France.
Mr.
President, colleague.
Allow me first regret the lack of interpretation on the occasion of this multistakeholder hearing even more on an issue of utmost importance of global health.
As we prepare for the 2026 high level meeting on HIV heads, now is the time to collectively take stock of the implementation of the 2021 Political Declaration.
Guided by the new global aid strategy, we must be clear eye to correct course.
Progress has been remarkable.
Millions of lives have been saved, including through global solidarity and multilateral cooperation.
France remains proud to stand at the forefront of this effort as a founding supporter of the Global Fund, the co founder of Unit Aid, and a steadfast supporter of UND and the WHO.
New innovative tools such as longstanding prevention treatments emerged, offering unprecedented hope and showing once again that promoting equitable, large scale access to innovations in prevention as well as in diagnosis, treatment, and case management remains the cornerstone of an effective, affordable, and cost efficient response.
However, we cannot afford complacency.
Sustained political will, sustainable financing, and continued international solidarity remain key.
Ending EDS by 2030 will also require a response firmly grounded in rights, including SRHR.
ED strives where inequalities, including gender based ones persist, where stigma and discrimination silence communities, where criminalization and exclusion preven people from accessing services.
France reiterates the vital role of civil society and community led organizations in the fight against HIV.
Community actors remain indispensable partners as they are closest to affected populations, particularly women, young people, and key populations.
Their expertise, trust, and leadership are critical in all respects.
Ending AIDS by 2030 remains possible, but achieving this objective will require us to protect multilateralism, defend human rights, support communities, and ensure that no one is left behind.
I thank you.
Thank you very much, friends.
Our next intervention will come from virtual side.
We call an international network of people who use drugs.
Thanks, dear moderator.
Dear delegates, exces, communities, civil society.
As the Executive Director of the International Network of people who use drugs and as a person who uses drugs and lives with HIV, I speak today not only from policy expertise, but from survival.
I started using drugs at 13.
I began injecting at 16.
I did receive my first sterial syringe in harm reduction program only when I was 23, just because over seven years, harm reduction was not available enough in my country for people to use drugs.
The same year I was diagnosed with HIV and hepatitis C.
I waited 712 days for antiretroviral treatment.
I waited 13 years for hepatitis C treatment.
I survived six overdoses, repeated denial of healthcare, and the constant violence of criminalization.
Thank you to opioid agonist therapy and harm reduction, I stayed alive, but some peers didn't as those lifesaving services are still very limited.
My story is not exceptional.
That is the crisis.
The HIV response cannot succeed while governments continue to criminalize the very communities most affected by HIV.
Punitive drug laws, mass incarceration, police violence, compulsory detention, and shrinking civic space are not side issues, they are drivers of the epidemic.
Today, we are hearing renewed commitments to equity and inclusion, but equity cannot exist where communities are silenced, deregistered, defunded, or excluded from decision making.
We already know what works.
Community led harm reduction services, needle in syringe programs, opio agonist therapy, peer led outreach, and decriminalization save lives.
These are not ideological demands.
They are evidence based interventions grounded in decades of science and lived experience.
This is why the recently launched UNA guidance note on decriminalization and in HIV context is so important.
It clearly outlines why countries must decriminalize and how governments can implement rights based legal and policy reforms that improve health outcomes and help end AIDS.
The evidence is there, the guidance is there.
The question now is whether member states are prepared to show the political will to.
As we enter the final stretch toward 2030, governments cannot continue to endorse public health and declarations while maintaining laws and policies that punish people away from healthcare and into prisons, violence, and preventable deaths.
The 2026 Political Declaration must therefore commit to the decriminalization of drug use and possession for personal use, the removal of punitive laws targeting key populations, sustainable funding for community led organizations, and the protection of civic space, including for networks of people who use drugs.
Nothing about us without us cannot remain a slogan.
Communities must not only be consulted, we must be resourced, protected, and recognized as equal partners in governance, service delivery, and accountability.
If the world is serious about ending AIDS by 2030, then it is the time to stop waging war on the people most affected by HIV and start investing in our lives, our health, and our leadership.
Thank you.
Thank you, International network of people who use drugs, gentle reminder to our next intervention so kindly keep them at 2 minutes.
Our next intervention will come from the member state, Uganda.
Excellency' delegates, we thank the president of the General Assembly, the co facilitators, UN aides, and all stakeholders for convening this important multi stakeholder hearing in preparation for the 2026 high level meeting on HIV Aids.
RGA recognizes the structure inequalities, poverty, stigma, debt burdens, humanitarian crisis and declining external financing continue to undermine progress in the HIV response, particularly involving countries, as highlighted in the Secretary-General report, while progress has been significant remains uneven and fragile.
Despite these challenges, Uganda remains firmly committed to ending HIV, aids the public health threat by 2030 rather.
Through strong political leadership, integrated public health approaches and commit engagement, Uganda has significantly expanded treatment coverage and continues progressing toward the global 905-90-5905 targets.
Uganda continues to strengthen access to prevention, treatment and care services through evidence based interventions.
Most recently, the government official launched a liner the Na Pavi the long acting injectable HIV prevention medication as part of efforts to expand access to innovative preventive tools, particularly for populations at higher risk of HIV infection.
In this regard, Ugand expresses its appreciation to the United States government PEP Fund, as well as Global Fund who Unites Civil Society, faith leaders, communities and all development partners whose long standing solidarity and support continue to strengthen Uganda's HIV response.
We further underscore that we must avoid politicization of any kind, especially regarding domestic legislative processes by senior UN officials.
My delegation takes exception to the opening remarks made by the Executive Director of Unit, referencing recently adopted regulation in Uganda, which has no relation to HIV Aids.
Uganda also continues to strengthen HIV surveillance and accountability through the ongoing Uganda population based HIV impact assessment survey 2024 2025, which will support data driven policies and help identify remaining gaps in the prevention, treatment, and viral suppression efforts.
As one of the world's largest refugee hosting countries, Uganda continues to pursue inclusive policies that integrate refugees into national health and social protection systems.
As we move towards high level meeting in June, Uganda calls for a balanced, action oriented a development focused Political Declaration that respects national ownership while accelerating equitable access to lifesaving HIV services and innovations for all.
I thank you, Chad.
Thank you very much, Uganda.
Our next intervention will come from strong minds.
Good afternoon.
I'm here today on behalf of Strong Minds, a mental health organization based in Uganda and working across East and Southern Africa.
We bring high quality evidence based first line depression treatment to people in their own communities and schools, including people living with at risk of and affected by HIV.
Since 2013, we have treated nearly 2 million people for depression using a six week interpersonal group talk therapy model delivered by trained lay providers like community health workers, teachers, and peers.
Three quarters of our clients achieve depression free status by the end of therapy.
We are proof that low cost, community based, culturally relevant mental health care can be delivered at scale across sectors and through integration into existing health systems and community programs.
We know that mental health and HIV are intricately linked with one another.
People with untreated mental health conditions are at greater risk of acquiring a new HIV infection and people living with HIV and depression have lower HART adherence and viral suppression.
Simply put, integrating mental health and HIV services can improve testing and treatment uptake and adherence and improve overall outcomes.
Today, we urgently call on member states to integrate evidence based and community based mental health services, including those given by lay providers and peers within HIV programming.
We call for dedicated resources to support this integration, including for health worker training, supervision, and adequate remuneration.
Member states must further ensure the political Declaration includes measurable commitments for mental health integration across the HIV prevention and care continuum.
By embedding mental health within the HIV response, we can accelerate progress on global HIV targets and create rights based person centered systems that meet the full needs of people living with at risk of and affected by HIV.
Thank you.
Thank you, strong minds.
Our next intervention will come from Sigma Nursing.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues and partners.
My name is doctor Jasper Arnaba and I am representing Sigma Nursing, representing nurses across the world.
Nurses comprise nearly 60% of the global health workforce and remain at the forefront of the HIP response in hospitals, clinics, schools, communities, refugee settings, correctional systems, and underserved regions where access to care is most fragile.
Yet, despite our central role, nurses are too often underrepresented in policy decision making, investment strategies, and global leadership conversations on HIV AIDS.
As we gathered today for the 2026 high level meeting, we call for renewed global commitment grounded in equity, dignity, science, and community leadership.
First, we urge member states to strengthen investments in the nursing workforce, ending HIV AIDS as a public health threat that threat will not be possible without adequately trained, protected, and retained nurses.
Second, we call for accelerated action to eliminate inequities in HIV prevention, testing, treatment, and long term care.
Nurses witness daily house stigma, discrimination and structural barriers continue to cost lives.
Finally, we affirm that people living with HIV must remain at the center of every policy, program and solution.
Compassionate, person centered care is not optional.
It is essential.
Today, nurses stand ready not only as caregivers, but as scientists, educators, advocates, innovators, and global partners in achieving an AIDS free generation.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sigma Nursing.
Our next intervention will come from the lady from 413.
Thank you.
Doctor A Mafe with PhD in political science and I am the President of International Organization of human rights Observed in the United States.
I speak today as a human rights activist and as someone who believes that by 2036 we can end it as a public health threat, but only if we put rights and people first.
As a human rights activist and observer, we demand laws that protect, not punish.
We keep helping deliver community service where the system fails.
We push for fair access to medicine and prevention from everyone.
To be able to reach its 2036, we call the government to first, remove laws that punish people because that drive people away from care.
F and partner with community led groups as equal.
In HIV services in universal health coverage with no left one behind.
Protect the human rights defenders.
As we know all of us, science can give us the tools, but the human rights give us the way to them fairly.
So let us act now together with courage and compassion.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Our next intervention will come from co sponsor UNDP.
Colleagues and partners.
Let me start with a story from Pakistan.
Shea is living with HIV and is a survivor of gender based violence.
When she seeks help, she expects judgment and stigma.
Instead, community legal aid workers supported by UNDP listen to her and tell her something quite simple.
You have rights.
She later says that these words give her strength.
This is something that should give all of us pause.
Hearing the words you have rights should not be extraordinary.
Yet for too many people, fear, stigma, violence, discrimination, and criminalization still determine whether they can access HIV prevention, treatment or care.
The 44 million people who have died of AIDS since 1980 did not hear or experience the words, you have rights.
Ending AIDS as a public health threat has never been more achievable.
The tools exist, the knowledge exists, and make no mistake, the resources exist.
It is a matter of what is prioritized and what is valued.
The gap between what is possible and what is happening is widening.
1.3 million new HIV infections in 2024.
Disproportionately among key populations at higher risk of acquiring HIV, adolescent girls and young women and people brutalized by criminalization and exclusion.
Civic space and gender equality in enabling environments are moving in the wrong direction in too many places.
The sharpest financing contraction in the history of the HIV response, compounded by conflicts and shocks, is deepening pressures and costing lives.
Many countries are stepping up.
Communities are keeping the response alive, driving the response as they have done since the 1980s.
But no community should have to carry the burden alone.
We must all do our part, engaging multiple sectors of government, development, finance, justice, social protection, legislators, donors, and partners.
We must come together to respond to sustained progress and close gaps.
The 2026 Political Declaration is our opportunity to deliver on this solidarity.
UNDP is a founding co sponsor of the joint UN program on HIV and AIDS.
We'll continue to work alongside communities, countries, and partners like the Global Fund, including in fragile and humanitarian settings, to close the gap between what is possible and what is happening right now, especially with regards to stigma discrimination, criminalization, and enabling legal policy and regulatory environments for people living with HIV, men who have sex with men, people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people, women and young people.
Someone listen to Shea Someone supported Sheila to realize her rights.
This must be the foundation of the global response to HIV and at the core of the 2026 Political Declaration.
Thank you.
Thank you, UNDP.
Our next intervention will come from the International Drug Law Advocacy and Resource Center.
Thank you for allowing me this opportunity to speak today, Chair, Excellencies, dear colleague.
My name is Benjamin Phillips.
I'm the Deputy Director and co founder of the International Drug Law Advocacy Resource Center.
We work at the intersection of Harm reduction, International Law and Human Rights.
People who inject drugs have been left behind.
They've been left behind in the community, they've been left behind in prisons and other places of detention and left behind in the global South.
As mentioned in the panel this morning, recent research from my colleagues at Harm Reduction International estimates that only a mere 6% of the necessary funding needing for harm reduction coverage in lower middle income countries is being allocated.
If we are serious about ending AIDS by 2030, we need a rapid scale up of harm reduction funding.
The 2021 Political Declaration on HIV notes and I quote, that the majority of countries and regions have not made significant progress in expanding harm reduction programs.
Furthermore, the application of punitive laws and racist and selective enforcement of these laws hampers access to HIV related services.
As civil society, we echo calls for decriminalization of people who use drugs made by UN aides earlier this year at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs.
UN aides stated and I quote, the decriminalization of people who use drugs, combined with investments in harm reduction services can expand access to care and enable people to support without fear of arrest, harassment or discrimination.
As a draft is being written, it is crucial that agreed language on harm reduction, human rights, racial discrimination more incorporated as the baseline into this declaration and into future resolutions on both HIV and drugs and they're also implemented by member states on the ground.
We expressed serious concern about the shrinking space of a civil society.
We call on UN agencies and member states to champion inclusion of civil society.
This must include people with lived and living experience and organizations run by people who use drugs, people who engage in sex work, and people living with HIV AIDS.
We are the ones most often working on the ground.
We are the real experts, and we bring real world experiences to the table.
As we approach 2030 and also the 80th anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, We call for UN system wide coordination.
The HIV response must not occur in a vacuum.
We call on member states, the UN system, particularly on UN drug control entities to welcome and incorporate system wide coordination and include contributions from the Office of the Office of High Commission on Human Rights, UN AID, UNDP, and others, and civil society, particularly people with lived experience, including people who use drugs, people engage in sex work, and people living with HIV into every step of the decision making process.
To echo what was said earlier by my colleague Anton, nothing about us without us.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, International Drug Law Advocacy and Resource Center.
Our next intervention will come from the gentleman at 413.
Kindly introduce yourself.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Ding Chair, delegates, Honorable representatives and cos At the moment of profound transformation in the global HIV response, medical impact urgently calls for the sting of a truly people centered response.
In the face of evolving global health architecture, the reduction of internationally founding and political change that could reserve decades of progress.
In this regard, it is essential to incorporate harm reduction as a core component of public policies and HIV response strategies.
This approach represents a value of opportunity to break down barriers to access to health services for people living with HIV.
Who continue to face stigma and discrimination, while also providing states with an opportunity not only to advance toward universal health coverage, but also to remove punitive approaches in policies and legal practice that continue to harm individuals.
The current and fut challenge is addressing HIV and all levels remain significant.
New approaches such as the provision of integrated person centered harm reduction services Also, it's possible to respond unprecedented situations such as health emergencies and barrier support to the most vulnerable populations while ensuring comprehensive care for the people living with HIV.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Our next intervention will be from the participant from four oh three.
Kindly identify yourself, please.
Thank you.
Yes.
Good afternoon, distinguished guests.
I'm Kendall Martinez Wright, Government Relations and Policy Associate at Treatment Action Group.
I am honored to speak today on behalf of our organization and community.
I'm here to express the importance of ensuring that historically marginalized communities are equitably represented in research towards new diagnostics, prevention and treatment.
Additionally, I'm here to implore the member states to continue funding their country's HIV programs and remain steadfast in pursuing the 905-90-5905 targets.
In the US, particularly since January 2025, we have seen increasingly devastating and rampant political, federal and local attacks against groups that have been disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS, specifically transgender and gender expansive individuals, gay men, and other men who have sex with men and women.
As evidence from the Williams Institute suggests that HIV stigma has also been increasing in light of the current sociopolitical context, we are at a critical crossroads with respect to protecting advances made in ending HIV and HIV stigma.
Over the past 18 months, we have seen many donor countries, not just the United States reducing or eliminating the research and global health assistance programs.
These cuts, among others, Garvi, Global Fund, PEP FRD, and the absolute destruction of US aid will lead to millions of avoidable new HIV and TB and other infections in depth.
We call upon the United Nations and its General Assembly at the high level meeting on HIV to take concrete actions to reverse these destructive cuts and to assure that all people living with and communities at risk of HIV, TB, and related comorbidities are able to live the longest and healthiest lives possible.
Thank you.
All said, thank you very much for all your interventions.
We now close the floor at this point, and we now turn back to our panelists.
One big question is among all the many issues that were raised both from you and all the participants from the floor, what is that one non negotiable that you want to see enshrined in the political declaration? We now turn back to Richard.
Thank you so much, moderator and fellow panelists.
Yeah, that's a difficult one.
But I think my one point and I'll speak to it, is that we need to return to the basics.
Having said that, as we close, my message is simple, the HIV response cannot succeed while people most affected are pushed furthest from protection, services, resources, and power.
Structural inequalities are not background issues.
Penetrative laws, stigma, discrimination, violence, poverty, gender inequality, racism, criminalization, and shrinking civic space are not separate from HIV.
They are driven or they are drivers of HIV.
For many communities, the question is no longer whether services exist on paper.
The question is whether people can safely reach them without fear of arrest, exposure, violence, humiliation, or denial of care.
The 2026 Political Declaration must therefore be more than a statement of intent.
It must be a compact for accountability to remove discriminatory laws and policies, protect civic space, finance community led responses, and place affected communities at the center of decision making.
Chair, I see.
Lastly, I want to say, let the high level meeting mark a shift from promises to accountability, from consultation to shared power and from symbolic inclusion to finance community leadership.
Ending aid is possible, but only if equity becomes strategy, human rights become the infrastructure and communities become the equal architects of the response.
Thank you.
Aon.
Thank you very much, Richard.
We now turn to doctor Mo.
Doctor Mo, please.
Hello.
Thank you.
Thank you, all the italics and moderator and chair.
Yes, particularly in the Myanmar, we are under the living in the serious conflict.
Many ethnic group and a setting, local health worker and community clinics, peer educators, network grassroot groups are often the people who continue providing care when larger system breakdown.
They understand the needs of their community and are trusted by the people they serve.
So we need to empower them.
We need to support them in any way, and we need to consider their sustainability and flexible funding mechanism so that they can continue services to the Community they are serving.
Also, community should not only receive the services.
They should help live their responses.
Stronger health systems are built when local people are empowered, supported, and included in decision making in places like Myanmar, community leadership is essential for a sustainable and resilient HIV response.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, doctor Mo.
We now turn to Jennifer.
Thank you.
We've heard on this panel and throughout the day that when we defend the rights of key populations, science is on our side.
Fighting policy and structural barriers to HIV care for key populations is not ancillary to the response, but is a core evidence based way to get people in care, bring down incidents and save lives.
It's the only path forward to end HIV and has to be a core component of the Declaration.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jennifer, and last but definitely not the least, Wendy.
Are we salute Wendy, or are we having technical difficulties? At this point, we thank our panelists for your reflections and interventions and thank you for all your reflections.
Today's discussions reminded us that ending HIV goes beyond health.
It is also about dignity, rights, safety, and whether people are truly able to access care without fear.
The long list of different inequalities it's never ending, and it keeps pushing many communities further away from services, especially young people and key populations.
Suffice to say we cannot genuinely end HIV while people are still being excluded, silenced, or left behind.
But across all these many issues, we also heard something powerful today.
Communities are not waiting.
Civil society, young leaders, people living with HIV, and grassroots organizations are already building solutions often in the hardest settings and with the least resources.
Now, as we move to the high level meeting, let us be clear.
As many speakers have pointed out, equity cannot be optional and inclusion cannot be symbolic, so we need everyone, the governments, donors, multilaterals, and communities to work together so we can protect each and everyone's rights, invest in integrated and people centered services, including mental health, and keep our civic space open.
Because the future of HIV response depends not only on sustaining services, but on sustaining humanity, solidarity, and hope.
We now conclude our panel discussion.
Thank you very much for active participation.
And we now hand it over to the next moderator to facilitate the final panel discussion for today's hearing.
Thank you very much.
Good afternoon.
Good afternoon.
I hope you had your coffee already.
I mean, at lunchtime.
We shall continue with the informal interactive multi stakeholder hearing in preparation for the 2026 high level meeting on HIV AIDS.
Panel discussion four is entitled Community Leadership Accountability and Inclusive Governance in a changing HIV response in the context of reduced funding and increased reliance on community systems to sustain the response.
My name is Gracia Violeta Ross.
I work with the World Council of Churches and I will be moderating this panel.
This panel will highlight the role of communities in shaping and delivering the HIV response, particularly in the context of transition to more country owned responses.
It will identify what country ownership entails and it will explore how to strengthen and institutionalize community leadership across service delivery.
Decision making and accountability, including true enabling policy, governance structures, capacity, financing, and sustainable support systems.
This discussion will also examine the role of community led organizations, especially community led data and monitoring in strengthening accountability and advancing human rights, gender equality, and structural equity in HIV response.
So I go ahead and introduce the first panelist, miss Talen Trikan.
She's Mina Rosa, from Lebanon.
She's a passionate women's rights advocate.
Talinh holds the position of programs coordinator at Mina Rosa, a network of women living with HIV in the Mena region established in 2010.
Additionally, she's a member of BIF Positive, the network of people living with HIV within her home country, Lebanon.
For Talinh, I will put one question.
She's online.
Talena, I hope you're hearing, you're listening.
Talena with international funding structures changing, the Mia region is set across roads.
How do you see women living with HIV playing a role in navigating these sustainable transitions and what does true governmental accountability look like in that context? Go ahead, please.
You have 4 minutes.
Yes.
Thank you, Gracia.
The leadership of women living with HIV in the Manor region faces an undeniable uphill battle.
In trans patriarchal norms and systemic gender inequality create a climate of backlash violating basic human rights.
Stigma remains the primary barrier to dignified access to health care, often resulting in the outright denial of essential sexual and reproductive rights.
Furthermore, in countries such as Egypt, Sudan, and Somalia, female genital mutilation remain widely practiced.
Women and girls face all forms of violence, including sexual, moral, and physical.
A study conducted by Mina Rosa showcased that 95% of the 256 women who participated in a community dialogue had experienced violence in their lifetime.
Sex work, drug use, same sex are criminalized in most of the mayor countries.
Moreover, many countries in the Manor region, such as Palestine, Syria, Yemen, and my home country, Lebanon, are facing war and armed conflict, causing displacement, weakened health system, and governments deprioritizing HIV response.
Despite this hostile environment, women living with HIV leaders remain relentless in their fights for the rights of all women living with affected by, or at risk of HIV.
I will give you a few concrete examples.
Women living is a peer educator in Morocco.
She's an outreach worker in Lebanon.
She's a CCM member representing the community of people living with HIV in Algeia.
Women living or participating in national dialogues.
They're sitting alongside decision makers shaping national HIV strategies.
From Egypt, Algeia to Morocco, Sudan, Lebanon, Dibbouti, all communities are persevering, often working without pay and at the expenses of their own well being and financial security.
We refuse to let our journey be sidelined and continue advocating that the rights of all women are upheld.
However, we cannot sustain the HIV response on volunteering and resilience alone.
While standing at a critical crossroads, women living with HIV can still play a major role during this period of funding crisis and transition, but our leadership, our community led programs, and years of tireless advocacy are all under threat.
The small but vital victories we have fought so hard to achieve are now in jeopardy.
As funding cuts loom, community led networks and CSO face the very real risk of closure, threatening to undo everything we've built.
We must recognize that funding cuts hit the Mana region with unique severity.
But like other parts of the world, our baseline is fragile.
New HIV infections are still rising.
Our community have long been sounding the alarm over chronic underfunding.
The UN AIDS Manor regional office was closed in 2023 without any community or civil society consultation.
By the end of 2025, most National Offices of UN AIDS followed suit, shutting down without any single exit plan.
Without strong protective mechanisms, these funding cuts will be catastrophic on our community.
Across the Mana region, civil society is actively pursuing domestic resources and transitioning towards government led financing.
Countries like Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco, with the support of global fund have already made significant strides in social contracting.
For us civil society and community leaders, the stakes are a matter of life and death.
How can we hold our government accountable if they folder? If lifesaving treatment, HIV treatment is delayed, interrupted, or stopped entirely, what power do we as vulnerable key population often criminalize? What power do we truly have to advocate and lobby? Today, Mina Rosa, the network of women living with HIV in the Mana region stands in unwavering support and solidarity with our sisters in the international community of women living with HIV, the ICW, and we fully endorse their set of feminist non negotiables, no regression on existing commitments.
We won't go back.
Maybe in the Vienna region, we are still asking for basic necessities, no shortages of ARVs.
Crap for female sex workers is only available in Morocco.
But today, in our call to the UN and member states, we refuse to stick just to these basic needs.
We call for non negotiable sexual and reproductive health and rights.
We call for 30% commitment to community leadership, and we call for protection and funding of feminist and women's rights organization.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Taline.
I didn't tell you earlier, but if you want to intervene after the panelists spoke, you can express so so that the Secretariat can take your name.
We go ahead with the next panelist, doctor Shari Gadiman is 4:00 A.M.
For doctor Shari is in Malaysia, but we can see the commitment that is driving these communities.
Doctor Shari is part of the country coordination mechanism in Malaysia, is a global fund board alternate board member.
Is actively involved in the response of HIV, particularly harm reduction, prevention from mother to child, transmission and social contracting for HIV intervention.
Currently serves as vice chair of CCM Malaysia, an alternate member representing Western Pacific constituency for Global Fund board.
To doctor Shari, I will present this question.
In brief.
Can you summarize how Malaysia is able to reach its successes in HIV intervention at this level? Please, you have 4 minutes.
Thank you.
Chair, ladies and gentlemen.
It is an honor for me to share with the experience on three connected as oft, social coning, government support for civil society organizations, and funding sustainable beyond the global fund.
Russia Report has shown that sustainable progress depends not only on government leadership, but also on strong collaboration with civil society and affected communities.
First on social coning.
Russia increasingly recognized that important role of civil society organizations in delivering HIV related services, especially among key and vulnerable populations that are sometimes difficult to reach through conventional or systems.
Through social contracting, public responses are allocated to qualified community organizations to implement targeted programs such as SID prevention, outreach, testing, time reduction, and social support.
This approach and about services to be given to be given to the community center, cult responses and trusted by the beneficiary.
At the same time, it strengthens accountability and ensure that intervention aligned with the national public health policies.
Formation, social capacity is not simply unty mechanism, a strategy punishes that strengthen EPT responsiveness and sustainability in the national HIV response.
Second, on the government funding for civil society.
Since 1993, the military Mia has continuously provided annual grants to the nation Council, who is the umbrella body of more than 50 NGOs involved in HIV related intervention.
The government recognized that civil society organizations are essential implementation partners.
Their expertise, community engagement, and advocacy efforts contribute significantly to prevention, treatment adherence and support.
I should also understand that sustainable partnerships require more than funding alone.
They require trust, dialogue, capacity building, and shared accountability.
Third, on the sustainability beyond the global fund.
The global fund has played a trustworthy role in strengthening asure HIV reforms, particularly in extending access to essential services to underserved communities.
However, as asure strengthen its domestic health system, long term sustainability beyond external donor support becomes increasingly important.
To ensure to ensure continuity, NASA is pursuing several strategies, including including domestic financing, integrating academic services to more fully into the national system, institutionalizing social contracting and exping partners with the private sector and philanthropic organization.
Importantly, sustainability must also preserve the leadership and community based service model that has proven effective over the years.
In conclusion, S A highlights that sustainable HIV reform requires a balanced prevention of strong government commitment to empower civil society, community leadership, and strategy financial planning.
By strengthening financing and placing community at the center of the restor, we can ensure that progress re inclusive, resilient, and sustainable.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, doctor Shari.
I I am now introducing to you our next panelists, miss Ika Noviani is here.
She is part of the Y plus global network of young people living with HIV.
She's from Indonesia.
She's Executive Director of Y plus, and she's an advocate with almost one decade of experience doing HIV work.
She focuses on youth leadership and community driven HIV responses across Asia and the Pacific and broader global governance.
For Ika, I am posing this question to you.
How can we strengthen accountability, financing, and political commitment for community led HIV responses in an increasingly challenging human rights environment? You have 4 minutes.
Thank you so much for the question.
First of all, I would like to say thank you for the opportunity to speak in this very important hearing.
As a young woman living with HIV, I believe strengthening accountability, financing, and political commitment for community led HIV response begins with recognizing the communities, not just as beneficiary, but as equal partner in leadership, decision making, and also service delivery.
The HIV response has never been built by institution alone.
It has been shaped and sustained by community, especially people living with HIV, young people, women, and key population who continue to provide service advocacy, peer support, treatment literacy, and accountability often in space where former system failed to reach.
For adolescent and anke population, community led response are often what makes surface safe, trusted, and accessible, yet many young people still facing legal and policy barrier.
Restrictive age of consent law continue to prevent adolescent from independently accessing HIV testing, delaying the diagnosis, treatment and prevention.
If we are serious about ending AIDS by 2030, government must take bold action to reform harmful policy, protect human rights, and creating enabling environment where communities can lead safely and meaningfully.
At the same time, we are witnessing shrinking civic space, icing stigma and discrimination, and increasing attack on human rights across many parts of the world.
This challenges directly impact the HIV response because health and human rights are inseparable.
On the other hand, we all know that community led and youth led response are effective, but they are only receiving a small fraction of HIV financing.
Too often, young people are expecting to lead outreach, innovation, and peer support while being excluded from sustainable funding and decision making space.
Yet, young people continue to lead innovation, especially through digital platform.
To expand outreach, share information, and connect communities to care.
But innovation cannot survive on the short term goodwill alone.
It requires long term investment, trust, and institutional support.
Strengthening accountability also means recognizing the value of community led monitoring.
Communities are documenting barriers such as stigma, discrimination, stalk out, and treatment interruption, helping health system become more responsive and people centered.
I'm not speaking here to tick a box.
I'm here to speak to remind the government, donors, and also stakeholder about our collective responsibility to ensure that young people are not only invited into conversation, but recognized as a co creator of the political declaration and the future of the HIV response.
As country move toward more country owned response, we must be clear.
Country ownership does not mean government working alone.
It means institutionalizing the community leadership within the national health system and ensuring community remain at the center of decision making, service delivery, and also accountability.
Because if community system are weakened, we risk reversing hard worn progress, deepening inequalities, and moving further away from ending AIDS as a public health threat.
Community leadership is not a side conversation or a symbolic commitment.
It is a foundation of a sustainable HIV response.
Thank you.
Much, Erika.
We have so much to reflect and we are going to do that after our last panelist.
I am happy to introduce to you miss Kate Thompson.
She's here.
She's vice chair of the Robert Carr Fund, a pool fund governed jointly by donors and communities.
Previously, Kate worked for several decades in leadership roles at the Global Fund and UN AIDS and with national and global networks of people living with HIV.
For Kate, we have this question today.
Throughout all the panels, we have heard about what works and what is needed for effective health responses that place community leadership at the center.
Could you please share your thoughts on some of the required enables for success? Thank you.
Good afternoon, and good morning, or good evening, you want to closer.
Hi, is that better? Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, depending on wherever you are.
I'm going to focus on two critical enablers for success, both of which require deepened commitment.
First, the role of communities within health governance, and second, the role of flexible long term core funding for those same communities.
Because without these we risk bad science, we risk bad policy, bad health outcomes, and ultimately bad economics.
The global health ecosystem is under a monumental shift towards country ownership of the HIV response and integration of HIV services into broader health systems.
Yet current discussions on this evolution often exclude communities, signaling, I think, a new panel of exclusion that risks unraveling years of progress.
I'm from a generation of people living with HIV, often criminalized populations who in the early days had to fight hard for seats at the table.
Over the past four or more decades, we've seen incredible progress in securing inclusion and leadership in health governance, funding, and delivery.
But like many here today, I'm concerned about what the future holds for inclusive, participatory health governance at all levels.
The choices made now will determine the extent to which the world moves towards better health for everyone.
By everyone, I mean everyone, including key populations.
At national level, country ownership is often interpreted in quite a narrow and restrictive way.
But when countries actually enable all of their citizens to be part of the solution with communities most impacted at the center of their HIV responses, incorporating them into oversight bodies, contracting their organizations to provide services, using community data to monitor service quality, and enabling environments for civil society organizations to carry out their work, then better health outcomes happen.
Inclusive country ownership, reinforced by properly resourced community leadership is at its best transformative.
But the question is not, is it possible, but whether there's the will to make it happen.
Within the multilateral context, the sunsetting of the UNH joint program will result in communities losing their only opportunity to participate through the PCB or any UN governance body.
While UNH led the way for other global health entities such as the Global Fund and UnitD to adopt and refine inclusive governance, what will the UN do next? Where is the appetite to advance this principle within the system? As I mentioned before, although communities in broader civil society are pushing hard, there is a incomprehensible lack of commitment to their engagement from many of the initiatives focused on the future of the global health ecosystem.
Across the board, partnership and respect must be worked on and earned and can never be taken for granted.
But this is energy well spent because only through multi sectoral approaches and co creation of solutions will we achieve equitable access to health for all.
Effective participation of communities in both governance, service delivery, and advocacy relies on resources being available for this work.
Funders need to take some leaps of faith towards providing core, flexible, long term funding for community led organizations most underserved in HIV and broader health responses.
Core funding plays an essential complementary role to project based funding and to the investments of large donors such as the global fund, which really reach small community led groups.
It's a buffer enabling community organizations to have breathing space to navigate crises, plan for the future, and focus on what they do best rather than on donor priorities that tend to underlie much program funding and which often divert organizations from what they do best.
Importantly, when the current funding crisis happened at the start of 2025, flexible core funding through the Robert Carr Fund enabled networks of inadequately served populations in the HIV response, who are its grantees to survive, to adapt, and to innovate.
In the resource constrained context we face today, this approach is more than a nice to have, it's a must have, and it needs to be scaled up.
To conclude, I urge member states and all partners to ensure communities most impacted by health inequities, including HIV as central resource partners with shared decision making across local, national and global health ecosystems in the structures that exist now and then in the new global structures that we're going to create collectively, I hope.
I urge all stakeholders to follow the science and fund community leadership across governance, implementation, and accountability, including with increased access to long term, flexible course of.
The question is, how can we collectively meet this critical moment with a willingness to push beyond each of our respective comfort zones with trust and solidarity and an appreciation for our differences and a recognition that when we come together, we are stronger and more effective in overcoming the monumental challenges that lie ahead.
Each stakeholder has an essential role to play, but without fully resourced community leadership at the center of these efforts, we will undoubtedly be set up to fail.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Kate.
Now open the floor for comments and questions.
Once I give the floor to a participant, please press the microphone button on the point.
The green light on the microphone will guide the technician to activate your microphone.
Once the microphone has been activated, you may proceed to make your intervention.
In order to allow maximum participation.
I please limit your intervention to 2 minutes.
Once the red light on your microphone starts blinking, it means there are 30 seconds left and you need to kindly wrap up your intervention.
We begin with a An intervention from Susana Fried from Just Futures Collaborative.
She is on the floor.
Go ahead, Susana.
Okay.
There we go.
Thank you.
Distinguished delegates, colleagues, friends, I'm Susannah Fried from Just Futures Collaborative.
As many previous speakers have stressed, we meet today as HIV financing has collapsed with devastating consequences as global policy and accountability mechanisms face existential threat, and as the communities most affected by HIV are being told through budget cuts, punitive laws, and shrinking civic space that their rights are negotiable and their lives are expendable, but they are not.
Diverse community leadership, including leadership of women and girls in all our diversity and young people of all genders, is not a concession, and as previous speakers have noted, communities are not a line item.
They are key to responses that actually work.
Yet, the backbone of rights based prevention, treatment, care, and support, sex workers, queer, trans and intersex people, people living with HIV, people who use drugs, adolescent girls and young women are being systematically defunded, criminalized, and excluded from rooms where decisions are made.
At JFC, our work begins from a simple premise criminalization is not a health intervention, and punitivism is not leadership, but they are tools of exclusion.
Feminist informed rights based prevention, treatment, care, and support can't be delivered to communities that are being criminalized for existing.
This is not leadership for success.
We call on member states to affirm four things.
First, explicitly affirm sexual and reproductive health and rights for all, including women, girls and young people of all genders, as the bare minimum.
Existing commitments are not the ceiling, they're the floor.
Second, 30% of national HIV budgets must flow to community led responses with a meaningful share for organizations of women living with and affected by HIV because defunding community leadership is not transition, it's abandonment.
Third, gender disaggregated data, feminist evidence, and community led monitoring must be protected, not just collected but acted upon.
If we aren't measuring what's happening to all communities, we cannot claim to be responding to them.
Fourth, Punitive laws targeting key populations and bodily autonomy must be repealed.
Gender just and rights based care requires gender transformative and rights based commitments and accountable institutions to uphold them.
Our communities must not be devalued and our rights must not be compromised.
As I said, this is not the ceiling, it's the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Susana.
We go ahead with one intervention online.
Rebecca Navana from Fiji Network of People living with HIV.
Please go ahead.
You have 2 minutes.
Rebecca.
Thank you, and Bolo Vaca and greetings from the Republic of Fiji and Vale for the opportunity to speak on community leadership, accountability, and inclusive governance in the HIV response.
I speak today as a woman living with HIV from Fiji and the Pacific and for many people across our region, community is where we first find acceptance, dignity, accurate information, and support.
Peer networks and community organizations help people stay connected to care and feel safe enough to seek help.
That leadership has never been more important.
Fiji is now facing one of the fastest growing HIV epidemics globally, and in 2024, more than 1,500 new HIV cases were reported and over 2000 new cases were recorded in 2025.
UN AD estimates that up to 8,900 people in Fiji may be living with HIV, yet many still do not know their status or are not receiving treatment.
This is not a distant issue.
It is affecting our families, our young people, and our communities right now.
As global HIV funding shifts and countries move toward greater national ownership, we must ask, what does true country ownership mean if communities most affected by HIV are still excluded from leadership? Funding decisions, and long term investment.
Communities continue to carry much of the HIV response, yet many remain underfunded and underrepresented.
Meaningful inclusion must go beyond consultation.
Communities must be recognized as equal partners in shaping policies, services, and priorities.
As a woman living with HIV, I have seen how stigma, fear of disclosure, financial hardship, gender inequality, and violence continue to affect women across our region.
These barriers delay access to testing, treatment, and support.
Yet, despite these challenges, women living with HIV continue to lead through advocacy, peer support, education, and community engagement.
Our lived experience strengthens programs, builds trust, and creates more responsive systems of care.
In Fiji and across the Pacific, we also face challenges linked to geography, climate, vulnerability, migration, and limited health infrastructure.
Responses designed elsewhere cannot simply be replicated in our region.
We need approaches that are Pacific led, culturally grounded and rooted in human rights and dignity.
The future of the HIV response in the Pacific must be built on partnership, equity, accountability, and shared responsibility.
People living with HIV are not only beneficiaries of programs, we are leaders, experts, and essential partners in the solutions.
I encourage government donors, civil society, and regional partners to move beyond symbolic inclusion and commit to genuine partnership with communities, invest in lived experience, strengthen community systems, and ensure that women living with HIV are recognized not only for the challenges we face, but also for the leadership and expertise we bring in level.
Thank you so much.
We receive now one intervention from a member state.
Please, the representative of Spain.
You have 2 minutes.
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, panelists, for all your insight.
Dear colleagues, we are at a critical moment for ensuring the continuity of the global IHV response, which is being deeply affected, on the one hand, by the drastic reduction in international funding and on the other hand, by increasing attacks on human rights and gender equality through hate speech, criminalization, and exclusion, especially against certain populations such as the LGBTI community.
When rights go backwards, the HAV response also goes backwards.
One of the defining features of the HIV response over the years has been the strong leadership of communities, which has proved essential for its effectiveness, legitimacy, and support to affected communities with a pioneering and lasting role in addressing stigma and discrimination.
Meaningful participation in governance structures gives civil society the opportunity to help define political priorities, guide the response, and ensure accountability, especially in the current context.
At the same time, it gives public administration the opportunity to implement public policies more effectively.
For these reasons, Spain reaffirms its strong commitment to ensuring that civil society continues to play a key role in the governance architecture of the HIV response within the United Nations in the coming years so that it remains directly involved in decision making and can strengthen its capacity to act.
The model of shared responsibility with communities of people living with and affected by HIV can serve as an example for other social and health challenges addressed within the framework of the United Nations reforms.
To achieve this, we must ensure that sources are available to continue this work based on our commitment to public health and efficiency.
The future of the HIV response will depend on our ability to protect what has made it unique and what is now more important than ever, community leadership and participation and a human rights based approach.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
A kind reminder to all the persons who will make an intervention to limit to 2 minutes.
We have a long list of people who want to speak.
We proceed with someone who is online, the Rita Gatt from International Network of women who use drugs.
Rita, go ahead.
Thank you very much.
Can you hear me? Yes.
Okay.
Thank you.
I'll try my best to move as fast as possible as much has been said.
Underground key population networks have led the HIV response long before there was even a HIV response, yet we remain the last mile as criminalization undermines every single HIV target.
We are the people for whom despite global HIV progress, public opinion and intersectional stigma largely remain unchanged.
We sometimes still have to prove our worth sometimes even within the HIV movement itself.
Yet for our communities without a community led HIV response, there's no hepatitis response, there's no TB response, there is no response.
Drop in centers have closed and needle sharing immediately went up.
Peer led and GBB services disappeared and many women who use drugs and sex workers have disappeared from care entirely.
Integration processes have been rushed in some countries without regard for other determinants of health and they have failed dangerously.
One example is in Camp County in my country, Kenya, once considered a harm reduction best practice for the region, where now for almost one year, not a single person who uses drugs has been reported as accessing ART.
Yet, we will never be forced to stop living our lives in order to access HIV and harm reduction services, and we cannot discuss sustainability while dismantling the very community infrastructure that made progress possible.
Countries cannot claim ownership of the HIV response while maintaining laws that push people away from care.
Country ownership cannot mean transferring responsibility to communities while withholding resources from them.
Communities cannot survive on short term project based emergency funding while being expected to sustain national level HIV responses.
Country ownership means the deliberate institutionalization of programs that harm reduction within health related laws and policies.
Countries of the global South must embrace research and dismantle the colonial racist and sexist structures that continue to underpin drug policy, sex work, sexuality, and gender identity politics.
Global bodies like the UN Aids guiding HIV responses must establish accountability frameworks that go beyond target setting, report development, and periodic review.
Integration must learn from the successes of community led programs that remain evidence based and impact focused, and communities must sit at both policymaking and implementation tables.
Government departments must work together to ensure HIV services are no longer criminalized and to recognize that reduced HIV infections ultimately reduce resource needs.
We must deliberately scale up access to HIV prevention innovations and prioritize marginalized populations as the first recipients.
Community system strengthening and monitoring as well as advocacy must not under any circumstances, be defended.
This data has never been more important than it is now.
Partnerships must become even greater and bolder at every level.
We cannot allow ideology to override evidence or politics to override humanity.
So how many more decades until science wins? If we continue to move resolutely together, as we've said here, perhaps by 2030, and if not then, at least within our lifetime.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
We now listen from the representative of the Government of Colombia.
Please go ahead.
You have 2 minutes.
Thank you, Chair.
Dear panelists, colleagues, Colombia believes that advancing greater national ownership should not mean replacing communities, but rather institutionalizing and strengthening their role as a structural component of sustainable, resilient and people centered HIV responses.
Colombia's experience demonstrate that communities are not peripheral actors in the HIV response.
They are recessions partners in combined prevention, community based testing, adherence support, stigma reduction, and building trust with historically excluded and marginalized population.
For this reason, Colombia has advanced regulatory frameworks that formally recognize community based organizations as key actors in the HIV response and facilitate their integration with their health system.
These efforts strengthen social contracting mechanisms and provide a more sustainable relationship between public system and community led responses.
At the same time, we have reinforced an intersectorial approach to HIV, sexually transmitted infection, TV HIV co infection, and viral hepatitis, promoting shared responsibility among national and local authorities, civil society and affected communities, particularly those in vulnerable to situations.
This contributes to a more inclusive and participatory governance of the HIV response.
We also recognize the strategic value of community led monitoring as an essential complement to the official information systems.
Experience have shown that these mechanisms strengthen accountability, help identify real barriers to access and improve the quality and relevance of health services.
Colombia believes that the governance of the HIV response must fully incorporate human rights, gender equality, and non discrimination approaches.
These principles are reaffirmed in the update of our national HIV policy.
The progress achieved in the global HIV response cannot be sustained without empowered and adequately supported communities that are fully integrated into decision making processes.
In this regard, we call for strengthening sustainable financing mechanisms for community led organizations promoting and enabling policy environments and ensuring that the meaningful participation of communities at all levels of government and accountability.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
We'll listen now from Kimberly representing the NGO delegation in the UNA Program Coordinating Board.
You have 2 minutes, Kimberly.
Thank you, Madam Chair, co facilitators, all protocols observed.
I speak on behalf of the NGO delegation to the UNA, PCB from Latin America and the Caribbean region.
As a community advocate, I have witnessed firsthand how communities continue to hold the HIV response together, especially in time of crisis.
Across our region, key populations and community led organizations are often the first point of support for people facing stigma, discrimination, criminalization, and barriers.
To health care.
We are not only benefactors of the response, but also responders, leaders, educators, and advocates.
Today, however, we are being asked to sustain this work in the context of shrinking funding and increasing uncertainty.
Community systems cannot continue to continue operating on passion and volunteerism alone.
Meaningful community leadership requires sustainable investment, flexible funding, and safe spaces for community to organize and lead.
The new Political declaration must be stronger and more ambitious in translating political commitments into concrete action to achieve the 905-90-5905 targets, as well as the 101010 targets on reducing stigma, discrimination, and inequalities.
These commitments cannot remain aspirational.
They must be supported by accountability, sustainable funding, and the protection of community led responses.
Communities have carried this response for decades.
With trust, resources, and meaningful partnerships, we will continue leading the way forward ending AIDS.
We are calling on member states to celebrate our achievements heading up to the high level meeting on HIV and AIDS instead of trying to remove our presence from the political declaration.
Thank you.
Thank you so much, V.
We now listen from the International Association for Dental, Oral and Crinofcial Research.
You have 2 minutes.
Thank you so much.
The International Association for Dental, Oral and Cranofacal Research and the FDI Will Dental Federation welcome the focus on community leadership and country ownership in sustaining the HIV response.
Oral diseases are common, visible, and often early indicators of HIV infection.
Community based oral health services provide a practical entry point and can support early detection, referral, and sustained engagement in HIV care, particularly for populations facing barriers to formal health systems.
The World workshops on oral health and HIV and AIDS highlight the role of oral health professionals working alongside communities to expand access, build trust, and support prevention and education.
Consistent with the WHO Global Oral Health Action Plan, strengthening community systems requires investments in inclusive governance, enhanced workforce capacity, and community led data systems that drive accountability and responsive policies.
Within the Political Declaration and on local and regional levels, we call on member states to integrate oral health and related indicators into community led HIV and primary health care programs.
Engage oral health professionals, including researchers in national HIV services planning, implementation and governance mechanisms, ensure policies that protect against discrimination and enable inclusive access, and invest in sustainable, data driven community based delivery models.
IADR and FDI stand ready to support community led, accountable HIV responses through research, capacity building, and global collaboration.
Thank you so much.
We listen now from Global Action for Trans equality.
Erica.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
You have 2 minutes.
Thank you, Madam Moderator, panelists, Excellency.
My name is Spool.
I am a human rights Officer at Gate Global Action for Tran Equality.
As a trans human rights defender, every day in our work, we receive information about trans transgender diverse people that are under attack, that are being persecuted just for being who they are.
The stigma discrimination, and antigender attack against our community is what makes trans transgender diverse people vulnerable to HIV.
We talk about community engagement and leadership, but some of us that is far away dream.
When we talk about dream, some of us cannot close our eye and go to sleep because right now at this moment, our issue is survival, trying to remain alive and safe in the world that refuse to accept our humanity and who use our identity as a political scapegoat to win vote.
Why you spend million in campaign demonizing our identity, we struggle for survival and yet we remain resilient to be active in HIV response, to provide service to our peer, provide capacity building, and provide financial assistance for safety and security, and essential prevention and care service.
When we talk about generation free from AID, we need to understand that we will never be able to achieve it if we don't value all human and respect dignity for all.
I urge member states to ensure that our identity are not erased and not to allow the polarization of group and identity.
To achieve the 2030 goals, we must remain united.
If one of us left behind, we all lose.
Esulating the past political declaration and names.
We are key population, we are transgender diverse people, and we shall not be erased.
I thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so so much.
We continue with the representative of the bridge Health.
Health, right? Yeah.
Please go ahead.
It was here.
Thank you, Chair.
Okay.
Thank you, Chair.
Communities have long been at the center of both HIV and TB response, often sustaining services and accountability mechanisms in contexts where formal systems are overstretched or over resourced.
From Nigeria to many other hybriden settings, community led monitoring is already generating valuable real time evidence on barriers to care, stockouts, delayed diagnosis, stigma, and gaps in service quality.
The question before us is no longer whether community systems are valuable, but whether they will be meaningfully financed, institutionalized, and acted upon within national responses.
The next political declaration should include explicit commitments to support and sustain community led monitoring, peer led services, community accountability platforms, parliamentary engagements as core components of resilient health systems.
It should also recognize the importance of catalytic role played by initiatives supported by organizations like Stop TB Partnership, Challenge facility for civil society and others.
At a time of reduced funding and increased reliance on community systems, we must avoid shifting from responsibility to communities without transforming adequate resources, protection, and decision making powers.
Communities should not merely be consulted.
They should be recognized as core leaders in shaping, implementing, and monitoring the response moving forward.
I thank you.
How much.
We listen now from the representative of Sati.
You have 2 minutes.
Thank you, Madam Chair and the co facilitators.
I worked with an organization called Sati, which works on universal health access through 500 plus community based organizations.
There are three asks I have for AFA governments.
We need to learn from the governments which are funding community responses not only in HIV, but in other areas.
India is a good example.
We also need to invest in building the capacities of communities in delivering integrated services.
Currently, we are only building capacities on disease specific focus, but we need to move towards and building their capacity and resource them for building their capacities in delivering integrated services and also advocating for them.
Third, we need to invest in supporting the government and building systems for funding community systems through their domestic budgets.
Currently, these community systems are not part of the domestic budget line items.
We need to build their capacity and learn from others and then also to include them in the domestic budgets.
In this, we need to support the governments to change the structures of the national budgets to include these new line items.
Thank you so much.
We now listen from the representative of you and women.
You have 2 minutes.
Chair, Excellencies and colleagues.
As the HIV response evolves, we must confront a persistent reality.
Women and girls remain at the front line of prevention care and advocacy, yet their leadership is still undervalued, underfunded, and underrepresented in decision making.
Women and girls living with and affected by HIV and women in key populations know what works.
Their lived experience is indispensable to shaping effective, accountable responses.
Their meaning and participation is not only good practice, it's a global commitment reflected in both the current political Declaration on HIV and the Beijing platform for action.
However, participation must go beyond ad hoc consultations, as we've heard already from a lot of interventions.
It must be systematically institutionalized, embedded in policies, governance structures, and financing frameworks to ensure sustained influence, accountability, and impact.
At the same time, we're witnessing a troubling contraction of support for community led and women led organizations.
More than 60% of women led HIV organizations have lost funding or been forced to suspend activities, leaving critical gaps in services and weakening community systems at a time when they're needed the most.
For UN women, community leadership is fundamentally a question of power, not merely participation.
Women, particularly those from marginalized and key populations, must be recognized, resourced, and enabled as decision makers shaping priorities, investments, and oversight.
This is especially urgent in a context of shrinking civic space and growing backlash against women's rights, which threatens both gender equality and inclusive governance.
A sustainable HIV response and sustainable development more broadly depends on centering gender equality and investing in women's leadership.
When women lead systems are more resilient, responses are more locally grounded and outcomes are more equitable and effective.
I thank you.
Thank you so much.
Is there any other person who wanted to make an intervention? You can.
Then don't say that you couldn't speak.
No.
We have heard the last speaker from the floor.
Now I give back the floor back to the panelists for their final reflections.
You have 2 minutes each to make your final remarks, considering your main point in your intervention and also what people commented.
I will give the word following the order in which they spoke.
Then this means we begin with Talen.
Talen, you have 2 minutes for your final remarks.
Yes.
I want to quickly say three promos.
First of all, a very quick shout out to RCF.
Today, we're having them one of our panelists.
They took that leap of faith that Kate was just mentioning and they believed in a group of women living with HIV in the Mana region and they've been supporting us for the last more than six years actually, and they believe that we knew the best how to use and where to use the funds that they were giving us.
Secondly, whenever we're mentioning community engagement, let's talk about meaningful community engagement.
It's not just us community representing community and having a seat in decision making in meetings and representing community.
We want to be meaningfully engaged, we want to have community informed, we want to have community empowered, we want to have really participating and having the necessary tool to really be engaged and to be really able to discuss decisions.
Maybe translation, interpretation are really key important.
Empowering capacity building, also capacity strengthening are very important also for communities.
And lastly, I would say for over 40 plus years, we've been hearing the same things.
We've been hearing stigma and discrimination, community engagement, meaningful community engagement, and But we're going to keep on talking about these things as long as they are there.
Yes, we don't have an equal access to treatment, we don't have a prep for all, we don't have access to treatment in rural and remote areas.
So we still face stigma discrimination in health care settings in our societies and in our families.
We're going to keep on saying even if it's for the next ten, 20, 30 years, we're going to still repeating the same language and the same narrative because we're still facing the same problems.
Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, T.
We go ahead with doctor Shari final remarks.
Thank you.
They are essential partners in designing, delivering, and coming.
In times of shrinking recall, accountability becomes even more critical every investment must be transparent, impactful, and to the needs of the most effective.
So governance mechanism that include communities in the decision making helps ensure that priorities are aligned with the real needs and that no one is left behind.
Inclusive government also strengthen resilience.
By bringing together government, civil society, a communities, and related partners as equal stakeholders, we can build more sustainable and nationally owned HIBform As funding landscape change, empowering community leadership is an optional.
It is fundamental to protecting the gains we have made and advancing towards ending it in the future.
Thank you.
So much.
Ia, your final remarks.
Thank you.
In this critical situation where the funding environment keeps shrinking, all of us now start talking about the country ownership.
But let's just past there and ask ourselves on what does country ownership mean for us? What does country ownership should look like? Because for me, country ownership means nothing if youth leadership remains symbolic, youth led organization must be directly financed, formally represent, and recognized as essential partner within the national HIV response.
Not only temporary implementers, not token voices, but long term leaders of the response.
Thank you.
And thank you so much, Kate, your final remarks.
Thank you.
I guess I just want to acknowledge, again, the um human rights violations and other challenges that communities most heavily impacted by HIV, particularly key populations are facing.
We've heard it throughout the day and my fear is that it's getting worse, it's getting more extreme in many contexts.
Yet, as we've heard throughout the day, communities are nonetheless providing services and support to their peers despite all the challenges.
At the same time, we see anti rights organizations that are rejecting evidence based science in favor of really hateful ideologies.
I see how they've been well funded over decades and that frustrates me hugely and really makes me angry.
Just again, highlights the need for long term sustainable funding for the networks that have been here today in the room here online, who we've heard from.
I guess in that context, just again, linking the two elements that I spoke about before, participatory governance and funding, one of the um things that I've seen and really appreciated in the work that I'm doing now is how participatory governments and community led grant making and are happening in a way where we see joint strategy development, decision making, and learning between governments and foundations and private sector donors and communities to ultimately support inadequately serve communities, to really help them to continue leading in exemplary ways as they've been doing since the beginning of the HIV response and which I hope they will be fully resourced to continue doing because without The contribution, I really don't see how we will ever end dates.
On that note also, I just wanted to note the work that happens between now and June for the political Declaration.
It's been said already, but that text is so important.
But because for those of us who have worked in community and in different roles, it can be such a strong advocacy tool to help us in country level and more broadly move things along.
But beyond that, and I think several people have also said this today, I would really like to see action.
What is going to change? Because we can all feel great if we just go home and think, yeah, we got that text.
But what happens next? What happens after we have the text? How and when and where are we going to have the conversations and agree on the actions that need to follow the text and the commitments that will be made.
Thank you.
Thank you so much to all the panelists and to everyone who made an intervention and participated so actively on this.
I just wanted to say that we have talked about country ownership.
This cannot happen without the communities and these communities are diverse, and this cannot happen without the organizations that are led by young people, by women, by key populations.
This is the legacy that the HIV movement is giving to the world because this doesn't happen in other areas.
It's something that was built in HIV.
We should not give it away.
But we also spoke about the need for sustainable long term funding for these initiatives which currently are supported by international cooperation.
Programs like the Global Fund, we should make them something that is in the country, institutionalize them.
And we said participation of the role of communities is beyond participation, it's leadership, and this will bring more accountability and equity to the response.
I encourage you to keep thinking about this and to take this to your delegations in your governments, to your peer missions in New York and continue these discussions because in a moment of crisis, it's very easy to erase the things for the community.
We know this, we have seen this.
Please carry these messages in the conversations that will happen until the actual high level meeting.
We hope that this panel and the entire hearing will really bring a very strong declaration, we need this.
I'm also a person living with HIV 26 years and the first political declaration and the first high level meeting was a real tool for us to mobilize commitment from our government.
In the beginning, my government, Bolivia, did not have any funding for HIV.
Everything came from the global fund, even the electricity, even the toilet paper, this is not a joke, it's true.
But today, Bolivia pays 95% of the medications in Bolivia and only 5% come from the global fund.
This is because we organized, we asked them to make it sustainable and they listened.
We use the political declaration, so what will come now is very important for us in the community.
We have now come to the end of our panel discussion.
Thank you to everyone for really participating in this panel and I am handing over to His Excellcy Ambassador David Bkratz permanent representative of Georgia to the UN and a co facilitator of the 2026 high level meeting on HIV and AIDS.
Thank you so much.
Well, good evening, everyone.
We now begin the closing segment of the informal interactive multi stakeholder hearing as part of the preparatory process for the 2026 high level meeting of the General Assembly on HIV and AIDS.
I would like to express my appreciation to all participants for your invaluable insights and contributions to this meeting.
I now give the floor to Tita Maki from the Zimbabwe National Network for People living with HIV as NMP plus in Harare Zimbabwe.
Good evening.
Thank you, moderator.
I hope I'm audible.
Yes, we can hear you.
And also visible and also visible.
We don't have the video yet, but your voice is well heard.
All right.
All right.
Distinguished President of the General Assembly, distinguished chairs of the high level meeting on HIV and AIDS, representatives of member states, the ENA leadership, fellow people living with HIV leaders, communities, civil society, and partners.
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm honored to speak on behalf of millions of people living with HIV, whose voices remain central as we shape the future of HIV response beyond 2026.
I stand here today, hearing not the experiences of Zimbabwe, but also the resilience, the courage, and the determination of people living with HIV communities.
We have sustained the HIV response for decades, despite the burden of the disease and often in the face of stigma, discrimination, and limited resources.
This hearing has reminded us that the world stands at a defining moment.
The commitments made in the 2021 political Declaration gave hope that we could finally end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
Yet today, we confirmed a changing in the fragile global environment characterized by declining donor support.
Funding shifts, geopolitical priorities that have shifted, the widening inequalities, and the growing pressure on already overstrained systems.
In most countries, these disruptions are not abstract policy discussions.
They are the realities affecting people's daily lives.
They affect whether a person with HIV in hard to reach areas can continue receiving an interative treatment.
They affect whether young woman in rural areas can access HIV prevention services without fear of stigma.
They affect whether co led organizations can keep their doors open to provide counseling, adherence support, psychosocial services, and human rights advocacy.
My country, Zimbabwe has made important progress in the HIV response.
The 959590 factor is ahead of schedule.
But this is through the partnerships between government, communities, development partners, and civil society.
We have expanded access to hand rage viral therapy, reduced AIDS related deaths, and strengthened community systems.
The success of AIDS response will depend on our ability to work together.
The partnerships between the government, affect communities, and development partners are one way to protect our progress and sharpen our response to support those most at risk, such as children, young people, and people in formal settlements.
Furthermore, we must remember that to ensure a safe and dignified HIV response, we must dismantle stigma embedded in our clinics, our workplaces, and in our laws, but also recognize that commit leadership is the only way to bridge the gap between policy and people as the communities act as first responders, services providers, and innovators rather than just passive beneficiaries.
Honorable delegates in many countries, people with HIV already provide critical care support, reaching hard to reach and working with health care facilities, yet they struggle to survive on limited and unreliable funding.
As international aid declines, countries must ensure that the work of communities is institutionalized, protected, and funded.
We therefore call for first for the sustained and predictable financing for HIV responses, particularly for commit led organizations and fund line services.
Second, we call for measured integration of HIV services into broader primary health care while ensuring that integration takes into consideration to people with HIV minimum requirements for integrated HIV services.
Third, we call for investment in commit led data and monitoring systems that allow real time accountability and help us identify who is being left behind.
Fourth, we call for the removal of structural and legal barriers that continue to fear of vulnerability, stigma, and exclusion.
Fifth, we call for full implementation of the GEPA principle and institutionalized people living with HIV leadership and governance in policymaking, in implementation, and accountability mechanisms at every level.
Distinguish delegy.
The future of the HIV response depends on political courage.
The decisions made in the lead up to the 2026 high level meeting will determine whether the world accelerates progress towards ending or whether we witness a reversal of decades of hard worn gains.
History has taught us one important lesson.
The response is only effective with the great involvement of people with HIV in all aspects of the response.
When people living with HIV leadte, progress follows.
When people living with HIV rights are protected, their health outcomes improve, and the country economies also rises.
And when solidarity guides global action, lives are saved.
As we move towards the high level meeting in June, let us ensure that the voices of people with HIV remain at the center of every decision that affect our lives.
From Zimbabwe to the global stage, our message is clear.
Ending AIDS by 2030 is still possible, but only if we act with the agency, if we act with solidarity, if we act with accountability, and if we act also with the great involvement of people even their time.
Dear delegates, this is my submission, and I thank you all I thank Mr.
Maki for his statement and now I invite miss Angeli Atraka, Deputy Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Program for HIV and AIDS to make a statement.
Thank you very much.
Excellencies, distinguished delegates, dear partners, friends, colleagues, all here in the global HIV response.
This global HIV response has been one of the most powerful examples of success.
It's been one of the most powerful examples of multilateralism at its finest.
It's been one of the most powerful examples of action that has delivered lives saved.
Yet, as we heard throughout the day and we know full well, it will unravel.
Without a vaccine or a cure, without addressing and reaching all the populations in need, whether they be children, whether they be key populations, whether they be adolescent girls and young women, without reaching all the regions of the world that need to be reached and all the countries and communities that need to be reached, without one person without one person that is left behind, we will not fulfill the promise that we have all set out for.
Yet you have all come here in person or online all day long You've come here from your countries, you've come here from your communities.
You've come to share your truths, you've come to share your lived experiences.
You've come to share solutions, you've come to share actions.
You've come to share the non negotiables.
You've come to share what has worked to get us this far in the HIV response, and you've come to share what must be preserved as we move forward in the HIV response together as we build up to the political declaration and the action that moves forward from there.
We've heard and you've shared around what it takes to ensure a sustainable HIV response that is inclusive, that is multi sectoral.
We've heard what it takes to ensure that we all deliver on human rights based, person centered care For key populations, for children, for adolescent girls and young women, we've heard the power and the essential need to ensure that communities and civil society and the people living with HIV and affected by HIV are at the center of the entire response leading Leading the response.
This is the moment.
This is the moment that we're all moving forward together.
What happens now and as we move into the next several weeks here as we get to the June high level meeting on HIV AIDS and as we move into the future thereafter, what happens now will really determine the next five years of the HIV response.
So your voice matters.
Now, it matters as we move into the future.
The commitments that will be made matter now and as we move into the future.
But most importantly, the actions that happen now and into the future is what's most essential to ensure that we continue to deliver together to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and sustain those gains into the future.
The bottom line is that we know what it takes.
We know that it will take continued multi sectoral action.
Across government, across private sector, across faith based organizations, and most critically across civil society and community organizations, all working hand in hand together.
We know what it takes.
It will take accountability.
It will take bold and ambitious targets, and not just targets that are not achieved, continuous work to make sure that those targets are met because those targets represent people.
So the bottom line is that ending AIDS by 2030 is possible.
We've shown in the HIV response together what has been possible, and we can together get to the very end.
So we look forward to continuing to work together, to fight together, and to make sure that we all end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and sustain the gains thereafter.
Thank you.
I thank the Deputy Executive Director for her statement and I will now speak in my capacity as co facilitator on the preparations for the 2026 high level meeting on HIV and AIDS.
On behalf of my fellow co facilitator, His Excellency Ambassador Charles Masoli of Botswana and myself, let me thank the President of the General Assembly for convening this multi stakeholder hearing.
I also thank the Executive Director of UNAIDS, Wini Bniema and the Deputy Executive Director of UN Aids, Angulia Atria.
We wish to express our special thanks to all the speakers, those in the room and who joined remotely.
The discussion has been extremely rich with powerful and thoughtful insights from a diverse range of representatives of civil society and other stakeholders.
For many of you, your contributions today have been deeply personal and we appreciate your candor and your willingness to share your inspiring stories with us.
You have provided a clear and powerful call on action, and you came with specific proposed solutions.
We appreciate and took note of those.
Ambassador Masoli and I are honored to be co facilitating the political declaration for high level meeting this year.
We, as well as our experts and focal points have listened carefully today and let me assure you that your views are important for us and we will carefully consider them as we prepare the draft political declaration.
The message is clear, we can end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, but doing so we require the continued leadership and involvement of communities and ensuring this work is supported and institutionalized.
Policy and decision makers must meaningfully engage communities at all stages of the process for this high level meeting and in the global response to HIV.
Community led interventions and services are a cornerstone of the HIV response.
We've heard about the importance of empowering and providing community led responses with the resources and support needed for HIV prevention, testing, and care services.
We have heard your views on the need to address structural inequalities and to promote equity and inclusion in the global response to HIV, including via the removal of legal barriers and by reversing the trend of shrinking civic space.
We know we must share accurate information, ensure stable supplies of medicine and diagnostic tools and deliver equitable, people centered, and stigma free services for everyone everywhere across the HIV prevention, treatment and care continuum.
We must reach people early and we must help retain them in care, even in settings in which health care workers are wearing bulletproof vests and protective helmets.
Yes, world leaders need to be as politically brave as our frontline healthcare workers for us to end AIDS.
We have heard your calls to address discrimination, criminalization, and violence against key populations and other vulnerable people.
You told us that legal reform is integral to this, including the repeal punitive laws.
You've noted that rights and rates of access to care rise together that we need differentiated innovative services delivery models, including flexible hours, mobile options, and telemedicine, including diagnostic capacity supported by AI to help deliver care where health infrastructure has been damaged or closed.
You've said young people in all their diversity must be seen and supported as leaders in their own right.
They are aware of the needs and priorities of their communities and the wider social enablers driving the HIV epidemic.
We've heard about the unique challenges faced by indigenous populations, persons with disabilities, people in prison, people experience forced migration, people facing humanitarian crises and people aging with HIV.
It is clear that we need better data on the intersecting vulnerabilities affecting people's risks of contracting HIV and their risk of going without adequate care.
You have highlighted the need to ensure continuity of integrated and people centered services and the protection of people living with and affected by HIV in humanitarian conflict and crisis settings.
We've listened to your views on the need to prevent vertical transmission of HIV, prioritizing targets that address pediatric testing and treatment and reducing new infections in pregnant and breastfeeding mothers.
You reinforced the need for reproductive autonomy, freedom from coercion and protection from violence for women and girls to lower their risk of HIV and AIDS and to help maintain continuity of care which translates to better health and lower health care costs.
We've heard your call to ensure that all new HIV prevention and treatment options are distributed equitably and are priced at levels that those in need can afford them.
As one speaker put it, affordability is not a technical issue, it is a political choice.
We've heard your thoughts on how data systems, including those led by communities and those capable of providing desegregated data must be strengthened.
As the United Nations Secretary-General said in his 2026 report and I quote, the global HIV response is at a critical juncture.
Progress is real and measurable, but it is increasingly vulnerable to converging crises, including declines in external financing, high debt burden in the countries most affected by HIV, a growing number of humanitarian crises, and a regression in human rights.
At the same time, renewed country ownership, improved sustainability, and significant innovations, including long acting HIV prevention and treatment tools, offer new opportunities to accelerate progress, end of quote.
Today, you've made it very clear that we need an ambitious 2026 political declaration with bold targets, one capable of driving and accelerating global progress so we may achieve what is indeed possible, and the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.
The declaration must be underpinned by strong political will from UN member states to bring these commitments to life, coupled with the funding required to reach our shared goals.
We heard the call for member states to deliver on existing commitments, but also to mobilize new funds, including domestically and to ensure HIV is better integrated into broader health systems and non health sectors.
This is how we will build a truly sustainable response to HIV.
We must ensure equitable and sustainable financing is secured to support a people centered response at national and global levels and we must be realistic about what some countries can contribute.
One of today's speakers said it well.
It is not a question of whether we have the resources, but whether we have the political resolve to apply them to end aids.
Today's meeting has given us food for thought.
Hopefully, the president of the General Assembly will share a summary in the coming weeks in conclusion, let me reiterate the commitment of Ambassador Masole and I to continue to engage with and listen to all stakeholders.
The negotiations of the political Declaration is an intergovernmental process, but we are open to hearing the views of all partners to reriach the final outcome.
Once again, I congratulate you all for a successful Multi-Stakeholder Hearing and look forward to your continued engagement and collaboration for a successful high level meeting on HIV and AIDS.
Thank you.
I now resume in my capacity as moderator of this segment.
I would like to express my appreciation again to all participants for their active participation in the Interactive Multi-Stakeholder Hearing.
The informal Interactive Multi-Stakeholder Hearing as part of the preparatory process for the 2026 High-Level meeting of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS is now concluding.