For over four decades, the global HIV response has been defined by the courage of people living with HIV, communities, and activists who have steadfastly fought for a fundamental truth: to achieve and sustain HIV prevention and treatment outcomes, we must protect human rights, especially those of the most vulnerable. The path to ending AIDS has been marked by bold commitments made by countries to remove barriers to services, advance community-led responses and improve HIV testing, prevention, and treatment coverage. This includes the ‘Triple10Targets’ adopted by countries to end stigma, discrimination, gender-based violence and inequalities, as well as punitive laws that block access to HIV prevention, treatment and care. 

Yet, today, our global community is falling short and moving too slowly. One person still dies of AIDS every minute. Over half of new HIV infections are in key populations and their sexual partners: those most affected by stigma, discrimination, and punitive laws. Remarkably, according to UNAIDS, no country is currently on track to achieve the 10-10-10 targets. Recent successes provide a roadmap for action, with countries such as Dominica and Namibia recently decriminalizing same-sex sex relations. As a UNAIDS Co-Sponsor and convener of the independent Global Commission on HIV and the Law, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is collaborating with governments, the United Nations family, civil society, and other partners to ensure that everyone can access quality HIV services as outlined in Sustainable Development Goal No.3. That involves investing in community-led organizations like those in Kazakhstan and Eswatini, which are providing vital care and legal services to people facing gender-based violence and discrimination. Meanwhile, in 2024, the Africa Judges Forum marked a decade of progress in creating enabling legal and policy environments to advance the rights of people living with HIV and marginalized populations so that they can access HIV prevention and treatment. This has inspired judicial forums that now operate across the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia.

Digital technology is being used to advance HIV prevention like young LGBTIQ+ advocates in the Philippines who are using digital tools to deliver practical knowledge on HIV prevention. Digital, machine learning and artificial intelligence also hold immense potential to drive wider breakthroughs in tackling HIV. Yet such advances will largely pivot on whether countries invest in the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), which includes systems to ensure the security of data. Efforts to drive equity in this area include an initiative by UNDP and the International Telecommunication Union to support 100 countries in developing people-centered DPI by 2030. 

The progress made towards ending AIDS is being jeopardized by declining investment in HIV. There is a clear need for partners and donors to increase support for low- and middle-income countries to reach their annual $29 billion funding goal by 2025. That will help to finance what we know works. In the Pact for the Future, our global community has committed to ensuring equitable access to safe, affordable, effective, and quality medicines and treatment for both present and future generations. We are already seeing positive changes like a new Global Coalition for Local and Regional Production, Innovation and Equitable Access advanced by Brazil’s G20 Presidency, which aims to expand access to medicines, including game-changing HIV prevention technologies like lenacapavir and new treatments for people living with HIV. UNDP’s new #Triple10Targets campaign also provides a much-needed platform for partners to advocate for the removal of barriers for and with people living with HIV and those most affected by HIV. The common thread running through these efforts is an understanding that to end AIDS we must dismantle structural and social barriers and directly confront stigma and discrimination. This is how we can accelerate our collective efforts to end AIDS as a public health threat by the decade’s end.

Achim Steiner, Administrator, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The theme of #WorldAIDSDay2024 on 1 December 2024 is “Take the rights path.”