Multi-Stakeholder Hearing for the 2026 High-level Meeting on HIV/AIDS: Intervention by APCOM HIV/AIDS Ambassador

PCB Chair and distinguished participants,

Thank you for this opportunity to present my views as a former Envoy of the UN Secretary General and a former Director General of India’s National AIDS control programme.

The concept note raises important questions and I would like to respond to them. I would mainly focus on the proposed UN based entity and the core functions it should be asked to retain.

First, I fully endorse the view of the working group that sunsetting UNAIDS as a joint programme is not an option. It will simply result in evaporation of the entire global AIDS response built carefully over the last 30 years.

I also feel that the governance model approved by the ECOSOC while establishing the joint programme should not be tampered with. This model withstood the test of time and should be allowed to continue at least for the next five years. The proposed UN based hub must be aligned with the ECOSOC approved model of governance to ensure continuity at this critical phase of AIDS response.

I also want to emphasize that the brand name UNAIDS should be retained and continued with the new entity whichever form it will adopt. This will send the right message to the country leadership, donors and the communities. For the same reason, it is also essential that the new entity should be housed in the UNSG office to preserve its role as a global political advocate.

While downsizing, some of the core functions of UNAIDS can be transferred to WHO and other UN agencies, especially the bio medical functions such as ART and PMTCT. Transfer of this huge responsibility for monitoring treatment programmes will enable trimming of the organization to a manageable size. But the core function of prevention has to continue  with UNAIDS as maximum efforts are needed to bring down the incidence rates in the next  5 years. I do not find mention of prevention in the concept paper anywhere. Along with the identified areas of global advocacy, data generation and analysis, prevention must find an important place in the mandate of the new entity which should also preserve community and civil society participation in bringing the numbers down.

We need to adopt a differentiated approach for the country and regional presence of UNAIDS. Presence at country level can be restricted to an identified list of high prevalence countries and those with the largest number of infected populations. In the remaining countries, the UN Resident coordination system can work out a model of integration of the AIDS programmes into the cosponsor agenda. At the regional level, attention can be focused on these countries with a reduced strength of regional outfits. The headquarters’ size must be drastically pruned to meet the requirements of the modified structure. 

The funding model for the entity can be a simplified one, with funding restricted to ensure its effective management. The donors should show their commitment to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 by pledging adequate resources to the new entity and this will send the right signal to the implementing countries.

In conclusion, I would like to appeal to the UN Secretary General to provide leadership and a strong direction to the member countries by keeping the new outfit under his direct supervision, showing his deep commitment to end AIDS by 2030.