CORE | Resilience in Times of Uncertainty: What We Learned from the CORE Project’s Final Multi Stakeholder Meeting

As funding for health shrinks, civic space contracts, and HIV slips down political agendas, one question looms large: how do community‑led responses survive and adapt?

This was the central theme of the CORE Project’s final multi‑stakeholder workshop, Resilience in Times of Uncertainty: Advancing Community‑Led Health Responses through Collaboration, held on 5 December 2025. The event brought together 50 participants from across Europe – community leaders, civil society organisations, UN agencies, EU institutions, academia, and regional networks – to reflect on lessons learned and chart a way forward beyond the project’s lifetime.

Why This Meeting Mattered

CORE (Community Response to End Inequalities) was designed to do more than connect and support HIV services. It set out to prove that community‑led health responses work – especially for people and communities too often left behind by mainstream systems.

As the project came to a close, the workshop had four objectives:

• To share CORE’s results and lessons learned
• To hear diverse perspectives on equity, innovation, and community systems
• To explore strategies for resilience in a hostile political and financial climate
• To discuss how community‑led responses can be sustained in the fight to end AIDS as a public health threat

What CORE Achieved

The project’s results speak for themselves. Supported by EU co-funding, CORE partners across multiple countries:

• Expanded HIV, hepatitis B and C, and syphilis testing in community settings
• Engaged new community‑led leaders in service delivery for people who use drugs, transgender people, sex workers, gay men, Roma and African migrants communities;
• Piloted self‑testing and HIV/HCV/HBV/syphilis integrated testing in non‑traditional venues
• Strengthened peer‑led workforces through dedicated engagement frameworks

In total, 84,700 testing opportunities were created – exceeding original targets by up to 91%. Positivity rates were strikingly high for the EU context, confirming that community‑based approaches reach people who would otherwise remain undiagnosed.

From restarting outreach in gay saunas in Romania, to working with Roma communities in Slovakia, migrants in Germany and Sweden, sex workers in France, and contributing to the final approval of free PrEP program in Cyprus, CORE demonstrated what becomes possible when communities are trusted and resourced.

Equally important was how the project worked. Centralised, hands‑on management and peer‑to‑peer support enabled smaller organisations – often strong in service delivery but weaker in administration – to succeed. This model itself emerged as a key lesson for future funding mechanisms.

A Tough Reality Check on Sustainability

Despite these successes, sustainability remains uncertain. While nearly two‑thirds of participants believed some services would continue beyond 2025, funding was identified as the single biggest threat – followed closely by a hostile ideological environment and restrictive legal frameworks.

The contradiction is stark: community‑led services are widely recognised as efficient, effective, and essential – yet they are among the first to be defunded.

A Shifting Global and European Landscape

Perspectives from UNAIDS, WHO Europe, ECDC, academia, and Eastern Europe painted a sobering picture of the broader context.

Global HIV targets remain unchanged. Commitments such as 30% of services being community‑led and the 10‑10‑10 agenda on gender equality, human rights, and equity are set to be reaffirmed in upcoming strategies. Europe, in theory, is well positioned to deliver on them.

In practice, however, massive cuts to UNAIDS and WHO HIV/TB/Hepatitis capacity are already reshaping the response. Data gaps are widening, human‑rights‑focused work is at risk, and disease‑specific funding is being squeezed as resources shift toward defence and security.

At the same time, epidemiological challenges persist: late diagnoses remain common, PrEP uptake is limited to a handful of countries and populations, and innovation often depends on fragile donor funding.

Reframing HIV Advocacy

A recurring message from the discussions was the need to reframe HIV advocacy. HIV can no longer rely on standing alone as a political priority. Instead, it must be embedded in broader conversations on:

• Health security and pandemic preparedness
• Migration and cross‑border health care
• Mental health and chronic disease
• Vaccine‑preventable cancers and morbidities like cancer and health for ageing societies

Engaging with evolving EU institutions and agendas – from new Directorates General on health emergency preparedness and response to international partnerships, also reestablishing work with DR Sante – will be critical. Civil society has done this before, and participants argued it must rediscover the bold, agenda‑setting activism that once put HIV at the centre of political debate.

Community Leadership Under Pressure

Civil society voices underscored another urgent issue: leadership fatigue and renewal. Shrinking budgets, increasing hostility, and burnout threaten the very people who have carried the HIV response for decades. The shrinking funding will test if we remain collaborators and not competitors.

Speakers highlighted the importance of:

• Investing in new and diverse leaders, especially young people, migrants, trans and gender‑diverse communities
• Creating space rather than concentrating power in larger civil society groups
• Providing pro bono and non‑financial support for leadership development

Concerns were also raised about smaller, community‑led groups – particularly sex worker‑led and migrant‑led initiatives – being pushed out as funding becomes more competitive and centralised.

Alliances Beyond the HIV Space

Finally, the workshop tackled the risks and rewards of forging alliances beyond traditional HIV circles. Partnerships with human rights movements, patient groups, and broader health coalitions are increasingly necessary – but not without tension.

Different movements bring different frameworks, and these do not always align with the lived realities of key populations. Navigating these differences without compromising core values emerged as one of the defining challenges for the next phase of HIV activism.

Looking Ahead

The CORE project closed with no illusions about the difficulties ahead. Yet the workshop also affirmed something fundamental: community‑led responses are not a luxury – they are indispensable.

Surviving the current moment will require adaptation, political courage, and renewed solidarity. If CORE leaves one lasting legacy, it is proof that even in times of uncertainty, communities can lead – and must be part of any credible path to ending AIDS.

About the CORE project

The CORE Project (“Community Response to End Inequalities”) aims to reduce inequalities by promoting, strengthening and integrating the community responses that have proven key in bringing services closer to persons who would benefit most but face inadequate access, in particular countries where these responses are still lacking. This will happen through capacity building, networking, and the exchange of good practice and innovative approaches, as well as through a proactive outreach and engagement of relevant stakeholders, while addressing legal, policy, and structural issues to promote integration of these approaches into disease prevention and health promotion strategies and systems.

The CORE project will build on and intensify collaboration of regional networks and national and local organisations of people living with HIV, key populations, and service provider organisations. It will use, adapt, and disseminate existing national, regional, and global good practice approaches and tools from across key populations and disease areas, and provide platforms for exchange.

Read more about the CORE consortium and its plan of action here: https://core-action.eu/core-home.

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Views and opinions expressed are those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

The CORE project has received funding from the Health Programme of the European Union under grant agreement No 101080079.