The 53rd UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) takes place from 12 until 14 December 2023. The thematic segment topic is “Testing and HIV.”
The virtual pre-meetings on the agenda items will be on 4 and 5 December. The consultation on decision points will be on 7 December. This consultation is only accessible to PCB members.
NGO Report of the 53rd PCB Meeting | 30 June 2023
This year’s report to the PCB will focus on ‘People living with HIV during humanitarian emergencies’. The last couple of years have seen several different humanitarian emergencies arising from various parts of the world. Some of the most notable ones include the Russo-Ukrainian War, the ongoing conflict in Sudan, and the catastrophic hunger crisis in Somalia. These crises create gaps in the global response to HIV/AIDS for people living with HIV. You can now download and read the report.
53rd PCB Meeting | 26 January 2024
The NGO Delegation’s Summary Bulletin for the 53rd UNAIDS PCB Meeting contains the following sections: Report of the Executive Director; Report by the NGO Representative; Leadership in the AIDS Response; Follow-up to the thematic segment from the 52nd PCB meeting; Follow-up actions to the 2024-2025 Budget and Workplan (UBRAF); Evaluation, Annual Report, and UNAIDS Management Response; Consultation on the follow-up to the 2023 ECOSOC Resolution; Next PCB Meetings; Election of Officers, concluding with the Thematic Segment.
Agenda Item 1.3 | 53rd PCB Meeting
NGO Delegate representing Asia and The Pacific
Thank you, Chair.
I speak on behalf of the NGO Delegation, emphasizing the critical points in the Executive Director’s report and our delegation’s perspectives. We align with the report’s urgency for investment, recognizing that achieving the 2025 targets in knowledge, treatment, prevention, and community-led services is pivotal. This necessitates enhanced funding, unwavering political support, and commitment to legal reforms and stigma reduction.
Members of the Programme Coordinating Board, we desperately need a step up in the political will and investment to Let Communities Lead. It’s imperative to empower communities, particularly in decision-making, to sustain the HIV response effectively, especially the 30-80-60 targets adopted by member states in the Global AIDS strategy and 2021 HLM Political Declaration – that by 2025, communities will deliver
However, current budgetary limitations resulting from an underfunded UBRAF and regulatory challenges severely impact our ability to lead, threatening the achievement of the 2025 targets, including undermining the UN PCB’s unique composition. The NGO Delegation and the Communication and Consultation Facility (CCF) face a funding gap of USD 200,000 for 2024-2025. This shortfall hinders our pivotal role in bridging policy-making and the realities of those affected by HIV/AIDS, risking the silencing of crucial voices in the global HIV/AIDS discourse.
We urge Member States and donors to address this funding gap, enabling and empowering communities to prevent and respond to future pandemics. Investments in communities are investments in the sustainability of the HIV response post-2030. We stand by the vision of letting communities lead, advocating for a more inclusive, community-driven approach in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
We ask you to Let Communities Lead.
Thank you.
Agenda Item 1.4 | 53rd PCB Meeting
NGO Delegate representing Europe
Thank you, Chair. Thank you, esteemed members of the PCB. Today, despite being perceived as a language of hostility, I choose to speak in it about humanism and compassion.
The delegation of Non-Governmental Organizations takes pride in presenting its annual report titled “People Living with HIV During Humanitarian Emergencies.” We express gratitude to the numerous individuals who contributed to its preparation, especially those from key and priority populations.
The selection of the report’s theme was deliberate. If we examine a world map, we witness numerous humanitarian crises unfolding before our eyes: Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Venezuela, Myanmar, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Ukraine, the Gaza Strip – and it is still an incomplete list. In 2023, the number of displaced people exceeded 110 million, surpassing any time since World War II. It also marked the year with the highest number of military conflicts in the last 30 years – a staggering 183.
On a personal note, this year marked a turning point for me, too, as my family and I had to leave our home country and become forced migrants due to the threat of criminal prosecution for my anti-war activities. However, I acknowledge my privilege as a white cisgender male from Europe in terms of receiving welfare and general acceptance compared to those seeking refuge from low-income, food-deficit countries.
Our Delegation wants to highlight to the PCB that there is currently no shared understanding of humanitarian emergencies encompassing both man-made and natural disasters. Acknowledging the difficulty in reaching a consensus on a unified definition at this time, we urge the Joint Program, in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, to contemplate this matter from a public health perspective as lives are at stake.
One of the most crucial messages from our report is the pressing need to develop a minimum package of interventions for people living with HIV during humanitarian emergencies. Such a package should include:
Other key components are establishing cash transfer mechanisms and capacity building of communities.
Our report underscores the vital role communities play in responding to the spread of HIV in humanitarian emergencies. Communities conduct needs assessments, implement community-led monitoring, and work in local languages. Communities distribute ARVs and harm reduction commodities, provide information on HIV prevention, and support survivors of gender-based violence. Communities run drop-in centers, provide psychosocial support, and help with food and shelter. Delays in aid allocation to communities can severely affect the most vulnerable and marginalized populations.
We recommend that all actors involved in assisting people with HIV in humanitarian emergencies:
We emphasize our desire for this report not to be shelved “until better times.” Therefore, we encourage the Joint Program to revisit discussions on the report’s progress in a future PCB meeting.
Two days ago, a fountain in downtown Geneva was illuminated in blue to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Humanitarian emergencies underscore that human rights are often deemed worthless. We exist in a world where compiling lists of the “World’s Most Forgotten Crises,” the top 8 worst humanitarian crises of 2023, and the top 10 humanitarian crises to watch in 2024 is considered the norm. As the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone wants to change the world, but no one wants to change themselves.” Our report charts a path toward that change.
Thank you.
NGO Delegate representing Africa
Thank you, chair,
I deliver this statement on behalf of the NGO Delegation.
We are deeply concerned about the access to HIV and Sexual Reproductive Health services for people living with HIV during humanitarian emergencies, mainly for children, Adolescent girls, young women, and key populations. These are already communities being left behind and at the fringe of society. The ongoing humanitarian crises around the world, including the more recent one in Gaza, hampers our collective vision of ending AIDS by 2030.
More than 100 Million people have been displaced due to wars, armed conflicts, and climate disasters. These crises have intensified poverty and suffering for ordinary people and yield compounding vulnerabilities that impact the right to health and persistently disrupt the access to essential health services for people living with HIV and the general population.
These outright violations of international laws are straining health systems. While US$14.5 billion has been channeled to fund what has been termed the worst humanitarian crisis since October 7 this year, global funding for health and HIV has flatlined for over a decade and is drastically decreasing.
To end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and to have sustainable solutions to care for people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS beyond 2030, we must all see one another not as nations, donors, or agencies but as fellow human beings – Ending new HIV infections and AIDS deaths is our fight; we must own it and sustain it.
Agenda Item 2 | 53rd PCB Meeting
NGO Delegate representing Africa
Thank You Chair
I speak on behalf of the NGO Delegation
Esteemed Madam Geingos, both of us hail from Southern Africa and share a common passion to serve our continent.
Thank you for your inspiring words. You have shown us today – but more importantly – in your daily deeds – what leadership can be. Should be. Must be. Leadership is never just about telling our constituencies where they are at. Populists increasingly do that daily, magnifying and multiplying their followers’ confusion, prejudices, or anxieties.
Leadership means being brave and bold and stepping out in front of a constituency, making clear that, no matter how daunting the future, there are pathways that can take us there together. Leadership means speaking about decriminalization when others are criminalizing. It means speaking about human rights, where others are denying and persecuting our communities.
Leadership recognizes our communities in all their diversity where others seek to erase us – both in word and deed. It speaks about fully funding the global AIDS response, which includes fully funding the UBRAF, where others are cutting back or playing political games with funding. It strives to achieve our societal and service enablers – 10-10-10 targets – as others boast about the 95-95-95 ones. Leadership allows community-led responses and recognizes that nothing about us is without us.
With less than 80 months to go until 2030 and with the clock ticking for our communities, we need leaders who will work with us to support populations most vulnerable to new HIV infections, who will strengthen community-led responses that meaningfully engage and reach these communities, and who will lead country ownership and seek for domestic funding for the AIDS response.
As a young person living with HIV from Zambia, our community is ready to take the leadership role and be a valued partner in finding solutions together on accessing treatment and differentiated care. We are no longer in the shadows. Your political leadership, your investment in communities, and the UBRAF can ensure we end the pandemic.
ICASA 2023 was clear on the importance of inclusive community voices – especially youth voices, where over 70% of Africans are under 30 adolescents and young people living with HIV face challenges in accessing treatment, care, and differentiated care. Let’s not leave marginalized populations in the shadows. We need to engage these audiences so we remain open-minded to innovative approaches.
NGO Delegate representing North America
Danke, Chair. I deliver this statement as a North American Delegate.
As a queer gender-diverse settler immigrant long-term survivor living and thriving with HIV, I now call the Dish with One Spoon Territory, Turtle Island/Toronto, Canada home. My Chinese name is Sze Shing, which means to think honestly. I share this as this is a long-standing practice of Indigenous Peoples: to situate one’s roots so those whom we greet all establish respectful and reciprocal relationships after.
The Delegation expresses sincere gratitude for your leadership as the first lady of Namibia for supporting people living with diverse key and priority population groups in closing in on the 2025 testing, treatment, and viral suppression targets nationally, innovating a pandemic response that maintains unity and solidarity, countering gender-based violence and establishing social protection initiatives such as CO-Feed Namibia to address food insecurity, and calling for the repeal of Namibia’s sodomy law so the basic human and health rights of LGBTIQ+ communities can be safeguarded. Your work is rooted in a feminist and intersectional approach in addressing HIV/AIDS, one which UNAIDS Executive Director Dr. Winne Byanyima has called for. This decolonized approach counters the traditional top-down, neo-colonial ways of addressing HIV/AIDS.
To honor the leadership as exemplified by both you and Winnie, two strong African women leaders, by singing the Strong Women’s Song, which I have been taught by one of the often neglected groups in the HIV response: Indigenous women and transwomen living with HIV. The song originated from Indigenous women who sang the song to support a fellow peer in prison who was going through a hard time and was taken out of a sweat ceremony.
For Indigenous Peoples, the drum beat signifies the beat of the heart, which sustains life and healing. It is our hope that all in attendance will recognize the oneness within all humanity and that all can offer support to courageous, authentic leaders who are tasked to address an increasingly complex and challenging HIV response where the rights of people living with and most affected by HIV as well as the lives of children, women, 2SLGBTIQ+, and civilians are violated and blind eyes turned on crimes against humanity and injustices.
Danke, Chi Miigwetch and FLON for all.
Agenda Item 3 | 53rd PCB Meeting
NGO Delegate representing North America
Thank you, chair,
I deliver this statement on behalf of the NGO Delegation.
First, we thank you for the report. The NGO Delegation is heartened to have had the opportunity to listen to the esteemed panelists at the 52nd Thematic Segment. We were especially encouraged by the diversity of speakers representing NGOs and governments who spoke on how much progress has been made. However, more efforts are needed for HIV responses to be equitable and accessible for transgender people who are living with or impacted by HIV.
As a transgender woman living with HIV, I feel it is high time we are visible in this global HIV platform, and I feel incredibly privileged to have moderated the Thematic Segment with my distinguished colleague, Erika Castellanos, who courageously shared her own personal story of the challenges she endured to live freely and authentically as herself. Sadly, her story resonates with many in the transgender community, and it is what drives them underground, delays their access to care, hinders their retention in care, and results in deaths.
Congratulations to all the members and staff of the PCB for making such a giant leap to ensure the voices of key populations are heard. Through the presentations of our transgender colleagues, Erika Castellanos, Gumisayi Bonzo, Ariadne Ribeiro Ferreira, Masen Davis, and Lynn Regina, common themes surfaced – data gap, criminalization, stigma, discrimination, and violence were the consistent challenges. The NGO delegation humbly requests all PCB members to remember their stories when going into the drafting room and remember that the decision points being considered impact lives. We need your support when new harmful laws and policies are adopted based on irrational beliefs. There should be nothing about us without us in the global response to HIV.
On behalf of the NGO delegation and my beloved trans and gender-diverse community, I thank you for your attention.
Agenda Item 4 | 53rd PCB Meeting
NGO Delegate representing Latin America and The Caribbean
Thank you, chair,
I deliver this statement on behalf of the NGO Delegation.
Three critical questions will need to guide how we move forward as a Joint program
What works is the inclusion of communities at the decision-making and implementation stages. This means that any move to remove, reduce or defund community response is a recipe for disaster. We are the ones who have invested passion and sweat into making the world better for our fellow community members, and we’ve had to do this with significantly less than most other players for a very, very long time.
What also works is the joint program at full capacity that supports countries in their data collection and management phases and towards improving their advocacy efforts and evidence-driven approaches. The 38% reduction in new infections and the Millions of PLHIV receiving treatment is not by accident. It is a direct result of placing the focus where it is needed. Reducing the resources around the joint program is a short-term measure with long-term implications that will come back to bite all of us.
This glaring issue of resource shortages for the Joint Programme is a clear and present danger. It is counterproductive, and it disables all work on improving the lives and dignity of people living and affected by HIV and AIDS; it will, inevitably, reverse the progress that we have made over decades
What has not worked is the slow pace at which we remove barriers to access for Key and Vulnerable populations. We have celebrated the 95-95-95 targets, but we are failing miserably at meeting those 10-10-10 and 30-80-60 targets.
There are many answers to what we can do better, but we can all surely agree that we must “Let Communities Lead!” We must strengthen the capacity of communities and build resilient and sustainable community systems.
We must also build a clearer understanding that while we all strive to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, we are all clear that it will not be the end of the global response – not for any stakeholders and especially not for our communities who live with and are affected by HIV.
In conclusion, Chair, if I am not yet clear on this matter, what we must do better; what member states and the donor community must do better is to match the strength of their voices with the strength of their wallets by ensuring there is a fully-funded UBRAF. Don’t just talk about a stronger, more focused, better UNAIDS. Fund it. If Covid has shown us anything, it is that no one will be protected from a failure of the AIDS response.
NGO Delegate representing Europe
Thank you, Chair.
I speak on behalf of NGO Europe.
Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) has the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the world. In 2021, 160,000 people were newly infected with HIV — an almost 50% increase since 2010. Sadly, there were also more than 44,000 AIDS-related deaths – 32% higher than in 2010. Our region is a tragic example of how the HIV epidemic cannot be stopped and overcome without reaching the Global AIDS Strategy 10-10-10 targets.
This year, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights turned 75 years old. It is old but not outdated. 10-10-10 targets are about human rights first and foremost. Because harm reduction is a human right. Because diversity in gender identity and expression is a human right. Because universal health coverage is a human right.
This year, an Eastern Europe and Central Asia Task Force on 10-10-10 targets was created. It is comprised of the largest regional networks – Eurasian Coalition for Health, Rights, Gender and Sexual Diversity, Eurasian Women’s Network on AIDS, Eurasian Harm Reduction Association, Eurasian Network of People Who Use Drugs, GNP+, Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network – and supported by UNDP and UNAIDS.
Even though this Task Force includes such prominent actors in the HIV response, there is so much it can do by itself. We need a more coordinated, more funded and more data-driven approach. And not only in the EECA region but, literally, everywhere.
At the very least, we need an annual focused update on the progress towards reaching the 10-10-10 targets. What we do not need is to let communities bleed. We need to let communities lead.
Thank you.
Agenda Item 5 | 53rd PCB Meeting
NGO Delegate representing Asia and The Pacific
Thank you, chair. I am delivering this statement on behalf of the NGO Delegation.
We express concern regarding the lowered budget allocation for evaluation in the PCB53 Evaluation Annual Report. Evaluation is fundamental in measuring the success of our interventions and the real-time impact on communities. Without adequate resources for evaluation and community-led monitoring, how do we validate our progress and ensure accountability in our efforts to combat HIV/AIDS?
The report’s suggestion to decentralize training and evaluation to the country level is a positive step towards localized impact assessment. However, the lack of budgetary provisions for this shift is alarming. It questions the feasibility and commitment to this crucial aspect of our work.
Moreover, the notable reduction in funding for human rights initiatives is deeply troubling. Human rights are at the core of our fight against HIV/AIDS, particularly in addressing the needs of marginalized and vulnerable populations. This budget cut could potentially undermine the progress made in protecting and promoting the rights of those affected by HIV/AIDS.
We urge the Board to reconsider these budget allocations. Investing adequately in evaluation, community-led monitoring, and human rights is not just a matter of funding but a commitment to the effectiveness and integrity of our collective mission. We need to ensure that our strategies are well-implemented, rigorously evaluated, and aligned with the fundamental principles of human rights. We once again urge member states to fill the gap and ensure we have a fully funded UBRAF.
NGO Delegate representing Asia and The Pacific
Thank you, chair,
I deliver this statement on behalf of the NGO Delegation.
Concerning the UNAIDS Management Response to the Annual Evaluation Report and the Evaluation of UNAIDS Joint Programme Country Envelopes: 2018-2022, we have made the following observations and recommendations:
UNAIDS management would have heard yesterday about the added value that data generated by UNAIDS brings to the Global AIDS response, and many Programme Coordinating Board members are looking forward to the upcoming midterm evaluation 2021-2026 and the development of the next strategy. This is an area that the Joint Programme cannot cut back on, and therefore, we ask MS and donors to step up their investment and fully fund the UBRAF.
We, the NGO Delegation, know only too well we can’t do more with less. We can only do less with less.
On Day 1, my colleague mentioned the USD 200,000 shortfall for the critical role of the NGO Delegation to enable us to lead.
We hope donors will step up the commitments to fully fund the UBRAF at an annual level of US$ 210 million so that the Evaluation Office is adequately resourced, staffed, and supported with the target level of the budget for evaluation at 1% of organizational expenditures, which the Programme Coordinating Board approved in June 2019.
We are encouraged to see in the 2024–2025 evaluations to be conducted jointly with the Cosponsors include HIV as an element of the Sustainable Development Goal 3 Global Action Plan, Sustaining Impact on HIV through Community Systems, UNAIDS Partnership with the Global Fund and PEPFAR, and the Role of the Joint Programme in Sustaining the Response to HIV beyond 2030.
We thank the leadership of the UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director of the Programme Branch for taking on the responsibility of the recommendations to the evaluation to assess the effectiveness of the country envelopes as a mechanism to allocate and disburse funds for the Joint Programme at the country level.
Lastly, thank you to the outgoing Director of Evaluation, thank you for your leadership that has established an independent, fully functional, and quality-assured evaluation function in UNAIDS.
Thank you.
Agenda Item 6 | 53rd PCB Meeting
NGO Delegate representing Latin America and The Caribbean
Thank you, chair,
The NGO Delegation would like to thank the Secretariat for the report and acknowledge the Bureau’s follow-up on this agenda item throughout these last couple of months.
The HIV response is ever-changing. The virus mutates, society transforms, and the response remodels itself. And UNAIDS evolves with it.
As community representatives, we welcome the transparency, efficiency and accountability of not only the Executive Directors role but of all PCB Members and of the whole Joint Programme. During this past year, we have witnessed how multiple stakeholders can have expectations that sometimes juxtapose and oppose one another. Hence, clarity is needed for the Executive Director and the Secretariat to sort out the financial, administrative, and trust issues that are affecting both the Joint Programme and the millions of people we serve on this board while at the same time protecting the people doing the job.
They have no time to waste, every minute we don’t act is a new HIV infection, a new episode of discrimination and criminalization happening, a new life lost to AIDS.
Communities worldwide expect the Executive Director of UNAIDS to:
Thank you,
Agenda Item 10 | 53rd PCB Meeting
NGO Delegate representing Asia and The Pacific
Thank you, chair,
I deliver this statement on behalf of the Asia and the Pacific NGO Delegation.
Thank you so much, speakers, for your interesting conversation.
Compared with other regions, Asia and the Pacific has one of the highest proportions of key populations among new HIV infections. It is imperative that a significant proportion of our HIV prevention, testing, and treatment funding is channeled through the community-led organizations best placed to deliver concrete, population-specific interventions.
Formed in 2021, the Seven Alliance is a consortium comprising seven regional organizations: APCOM Foundation (APCOM), Asia Pacific Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (APN+), Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers (APNSW), Asia Pacific Transgender Network (APTN), International Community of Women Living with HIV in Asia Pacific (ICWAP), Network of Asian People who Use Drugs (NAPUD) and Youth LEAD.
The first joint work of the Seven Alliance is to promote effective community leadership and to advocate for community-led monitoring (CLM) as a critical component of community-led responses to HIV/AIDS.
CLM involves empowering key population communities to monitor and report on service delivery access and quality issues at regional and country levels within the Asia Pacific region.
Building on this momentum and responding to the needs in the region, the Seven Alliance, in partnership with the UNAIDS Regional Support Team for Asia and the Pacific, is organizing the 2nd Regional Workshop on CLM this week with representatives and development partners from 12 countries.
Since 2010, there has been just a 14% reduction in new infections for the region as a whole, with rising epidemics in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, and the Philippines. A quarter (26%) of new infections are among young key populations, ages 15 – 24. Almost half (46%) of all new infections were among men who have sex with men.
The Seven Alliance is ready to take the leadership role to tackle the epidemic in partnership with you all.
Thank you.