UNAIDS PCB NGO Delegation: With the HIV response in crisis, UNAIDS must not be sunset in 2026

As the NGO Delegation to the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB), we express our deepest alarm at the Report of the UN Secretary-General for the UN80 Initiative, which plans to “sunset UNAIDS by the end of 2026.”  

With this statement we invite people and communities living with, affected by and at risk of HIV, and community-led and civil society organizations working towards the global goal of ending AIDS, to join us in expressing our firm opposition to this plan. 

Preserving UNAIDS is not about protecting an institution. It is about ensuring bold leadership and strong coordination at a time when the HIV response is in crisis. It is also about protecting advocacy for the health and rights of the communities most impacted by the AIDS pandemic – men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers, people who use drugs and people in prison and other enclosed settings – in an era where they are under increasingly direct assault.

Following dramatic cuts in global HIV funding this year, UNAIDS has warned that an additional 4.2 million people are expected to die of AIDS related illnesses over the next four years, leaving an extra 3 million children orphaned, and an additional 6.6 million people will newly acquire HIV. Responding to this new AIDS emergency, UNAIDS has rapidly revised its operating model and is in the process of consulting on a new global AIDS strategy that responds directly to the challenges that we face.

In this context, preserving UNAIDS is about saving lives and to propose sunsetting it now is profoundly dangerous and a betrayal of the global goal to end AIDS by 2030. It undermines the promise made to millions of people living with and affected by HIV, and to the communities who fight each day to make the 2030 goal to end AIDS a reality.  These same constituencies are formally represented on the board of UNAIDS by our delegation, and their voices must be heard in decisions about the UN Joint Programme’s future. We therefore:

1. Call on the Secretary-General to meet with us and wider civil society to hear our perspectives directly.
2. Urge all PCB Member States and observers to actively oppose this premature closure.

We conclude by reminding the Secretary General that his proposal also risks derailing the Sustainable Development Goals, especially SDG 3 on health and SDG 10 on reducing inequalities.  UNAIDS must remain until new HIV infections are halted, until lifesaving HIV treatment reaches all who need it, and until the human rights of all people living with and affected by HIV are fully safeguarded. Any restructuring must strengthen—not weaken— the HIV response, human rights, community leadership, and accountability.

Signed,

The UNAIDS PCB NGO Delegation:

Martha Clara Nakato & Ulrich Mvate, NGO Africa
Jeremy Tan & Amrita Sarkar, NGO Asia and the Pacific
Fionnuala Murphy & Amanita Calderon-Cifuentes, NGO Europe
Xavier Biggs & Keren Dunaway, NGO Latin America and the Caribbean
Shamin Mohamed Jr. & Todd Theringer, NGO North America

Endorse the statement by clicking here.