Thank you, Chair.
On behalf of the NGO Delegation, I extend our gratitude for the Executive Director’s report. We appreciate the exceptional work of the UNAIDS Secretariat and the progress made in the Joint Programme. However, the alarming realities presented in this report demand our urgent action.
We are nowhere near to achieving our goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat. We still have 1.3 million new HIV infections to reduce, 9.2 million people living with HIV who should be on treatment, and a 90% funding gap to close to reach the communities most at risk – Adolescent Girls and Young Women and the Key and priority populations, which include gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender people and people who inject drugs.
YET, many Member States are not learning from our AIDS history; they are not following the data, hence the people who should be first in line for HIV services are instead most left behind. I don’t need to explain why this is unsustainable. The statistics don’t just represent data points – they are people’s lives.
Sustainability is more than an abstract concept; it is a route to achieving the end of AIDS, but it comes with risks. We need a robust, integrated approach that actively considers the critical importance of sustaining and scaling up services for key and vulnerable populations and young people and that increases funding for community-led responses.
As the NGO delegation, our sustainability agenda prioritizes human rights and an end to the criminalization of people living with and affected by HIV. It emphasizes the need for a fully funded global response supported by donor, domestic, and private sector financing, including community funding. While we recognize the development of sustainability roadmaps as positive, these will be ineffective without the engagement of communities as equal partners in defining the way forward and contributing to implementation and accountability, alongside unwavering commitment and action from Member States.
Similarly, while we welcome the proposal for a High-Level Panel, its success will again depend on the central involvement of people living with HIV and the communities most affected.
Thank you.