The United Nations High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS is taking place in June 2026. This meeting will shape a new political declaration for the years ahead, grounded in the new Global AIDS Strategy 2026–2031. This is very likely to be the last dedicated global political checkpoint on HIV before the 2030 goal for ending AIDS as a public health threat. We cannot, therefore, afford to treat it as just another diplomatic event.
As a person living with HIV, this moment feels so consequential – for me, for others living with HIV, and for a generation free from AIDS. We are living in a period when science is moving faster than politics, and we need to catch up. Erika Castellanos
WHO published new recommendations for two long-acting injectable HIV prevention options: cabotegravir (2022) and lenacapavir (2025). UNAIDS’ new strategy highlights that these and other scientific advances have the opportunity to end AIDS.
The science exists. The tools to deliver change exist. What we need now is the political will, financing, rights protections and community leadership to bring these scientific advancements to those who need them the most. This High-Level Meeting is really about bringing out the necessary change at the institutional level to ensure the end of AIDS.
What came out of the last High-Level Meeting
The 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS set out a concrete agenda for 2025. To reduce new HIV infections to under 370,000 annually, and to reduce AIDS-related deaths to under 250,000 per year. It paved the framework to reach the 95–95–95 testing and treatment targets, ensure 95% of people at risk can access effective combination prevention, make PrEP available for 10 million people at substantial risk, finance the response with $29 billion annually in low- and middle-income countries, achieve the 10–10–10 societal enabler targets and scale up community-led delivery so that community-led organizations would provide 30% of testing and treatment services, 80% of prevention services for populations at high risk and 60% of programmes supporting societal enablers. The declaration also explicitly linked progress to meaningful community engagement, multilateralism, human rights and the dismantling of discriminatory laws and practices.
These commitments recognized something our movements have always known: HIV cannot be ended by medicine alone. Only when treatment, prevention, dignity, legal protection, financing and community power come together can scientific advances be implemented in society. This was the promise of the 2021 Political Declaration.
What happened after 2021
First, it’s important to acknowledge that there has been real progress over the past 5 years. According to UNAIDS, fewer people acquired HIV in 2024 than at any point since the late 1980s. Almost 32 million people were receiving HIV treatment by the end of 2024, and AIDS-related deaths had fallen to their lowest levels since the early 2000s. That progress reflects decades of activism, science, public investment and community leadership.
But the world is still off track. UNAIDS reports that in 2024, an estimated 1.3 million people acquired HIV, more than triple the 2025 target of 370,000, and 9.2 million people living with HIV were still not receiving antiretroviral therapy. Among adolescent girls and young women aged 15–24, more than 210,000 acquired HIV in 2024. That is an average of 570 new infections every day.
The financing picture is even more alarming. The 2021 Political Declaration aimed for roughly $29.3 billion in annual HIV investments by 2025, but UNAIDS reported that only $19.8 billion was available from all sources in 2023 – 32.4% less than the target. The new 2026–2031 strategy estimates that low- and middle-income countries still need $21.9 billion annually through 2030 and that there was a $3.2 billion shortfall in 2024. Then the 2025 funding crisis hit, with UNAIDS warning that abrupt cuts in international assistance would cause major disruptions to prevention and community-led services, while the OECD projected a 30–40% drop in external health assistance in 2025 compared with 2023.
The April 2025 report of the UN Secretary-General described the situation with striking clarity: the world is no longer on track to end AIDS. It noted that the January 2025 United States foreign aid pause had already disrupted life-saving HIV medicines and services for millions. If PEPFAR were permanently halted, UNAIDS estimated an additional 4 million AIDS-related deaths, 3 million AIDS orphans, 600,000 new HIV infections among children and 6 million additional adult infections by 2029.
The June 2026 High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS is taking place at a time of both extraordinary scientific possibilities and extreme political fragility. It is imperative that we take the current situation as an opportunity to catapult us forward.
Why this High-Level Meeting matters so much now
A strong political declaration in 2026 can do several things at once. It can protect unfinished commitments from 2021, align governments behind the new 2030 targets, defend community leadership, create pressure for sustained financing and demand equitable access to innovations such as long-acting prevention and treatment. The new Global AIDS Strategy is built around country leadership, reducing inequalities, and upholding rights and community leadership at all levels of the response. It sets the 2030 goals that include 40 million people on treatment and virally suppressed, 20 million people accessing ARV-based prevention options and discrimination-free HIV services for all.
A weak declaration, by contrast, would waste one of the most important moments we have before 2030 to ensure the end of AIDS. Communities would be left without support as services are cut. Innovation would be denied to those who cannot pay for access. Participation would be limited to those already in power, disenfranchising all those who have worked so hard to bring about change. Countries would be left to their own devices, and without the political pressure needed, science would not be translated into rights-based, funded, accountable action.
There is another reason the stakes feel particularly high right now. The High-Level Meeting is taking place while the future of UNAIDS itself is under review. UNAIDS has already begun a major transition to a new operating model, with an interim report on the transition due to the Programme Coordinating Board in June 2026, and final recommendations due by December 2026. The Board has indicated that a 2027 process will review the mandate and the future integration of the Joint Programme. The world is being asked to renew its political commitment to ending AIDS at the same time as the global institutional architecture for the response is being reshaped.
Why this matters to communities
For communities, this meeting is crucial. Political declarations shape what gets funded, what gets measured, who gets protected and whose knowledge counts. They influence government financing of peer-led services, the use of community-generated data, the challenge to rights-violating laws and the recognition or erasure of key populations. The 2021 Political Declaration explicitly committed to safe and enabling environments for civil society, sustainable financing for community responses, the use of community-generated data, and major increases in community-led service delivery.
The new UNAIDS strategy doubles down on this logic, clearly stating that the response must shift from donor- and partner-led to country-owned and country-led, including through communities and civil society. It elevates community leadership as one of the three core priorities for 2026–2031. Communities are how the HIV response reaches people, earns their trust, fights stigma and delivers accountability.
What is the MSTF, and why does it matter?
The call for nominations to the Multi-Stakeholder Task Force (MSTF) is open. In the 2021 HLM process, the official civil society declaration was developed by the MSTF, supported by an advisory group and informed by online consultations, webinars with civil society organizations, and the interactive multi-stakeholder hearing convened by the President of the General Assembly.
The MSTF is one of the key channels through which community priorities can be consolidated and elevated in the formal process. It is not the body that adopts the Political Declaration – Member States are responsible for negotiating and adopting that text. However, the MSTF is a direct access point into the process. It can influence which issues are surfaced, who gets heard and how community demands are framed before governments finalize their positions.
How civil society can engage now
Civil society needs to start engaging immediately – we cannot wait for the meeting itself. Parts of the process are already underway – on 10 March 2026, the President of the General Assembly appointed co-facilitators to lead negotiations on the HLM’s modalities.
The first entry point for civil society is the national level. National consultations and position-setting are often led by Ministries of Foreign Affairs with technical input from Ministries of Health. Civil society organizations should not only be speaking to health ministries; they should also be writing to foreign ministries, budget authorities, parliamentary committees and national HIV focal points. They should request consultations where none are planned, present national data and case studies, submit proposed language, and ask how their country’s position is being shaped.
The second entry point is regional. Regional bodies and blocs often help consolidate shared positions before negotiations intensify. It is crucial to engage in regional processes, submitting written recommendations, identifying champions in regional blocs and pressing for language on integration, primary health care and community leadership. UNAIDS’ new strategy also stresses that regional entities, including civil society networks, have critical roles in harmonizing strategies, promoting accountability, mobilizing resources and disseminating information.
The third entry point is on-site in New York. The 2026 advocacy timeline points to political declaration negotiations among Member States in May 2026, with a final advocacy push in May and June before adoption. That means that Permanent Missions to the UN, co-facilitators and supportive governments need concise talking points, country-specific evidence, proposed wording and rapid-response engagement from national and regional networks. Civil society should not assume that good language survives on its own; it has to be defended line-by-line and, in some instances, word-by-word.
The fourth entry point is public narrative. Civil society should continue to produce briefings, shadow reports, community-generated data, op-eds, open letters, webinars and media commentary. The goal is not only to be visible, but to shape what governments think is politically possible and necessary.
Once the declaration is adopted, the work continues. Post declaration, we will start tracking budgets, engaging monitoring systems, publishing scorecards or shadow reports and applying pressure during parliamentary and budget cycles.
What we should be demanding
At a minimum, civil society should be pushing governments to protect five demands in the 2026 Political Declaration:
- Real financing, not rhetorical commitments;
- Community leadership backed by sustainable funding;
- Equitable access to long-acting and other scientific innovations;
- Human rights, legal reform and civic space protections; and
- Accountability mechanisms that connect global promises to national laws, budgets and data.
These demands are what the evidence already tells us is necessary to end AIDS.
No time to waste
The June 2026 High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS is a test of whether the world is serious about ending AIDS in the era of long-acting technologies, community knowledge and proven public-health tools. It may well be the last dedicated HIV High-Level Meeting before 2030, and it is taking place amid funding disruption, institutional transition and mounting inequality.
We should enter this meeting demanding influence, not tokenistic inclusion. Communities must be in the room, included in the text, involved in the monitoring, supported in the budgets and engaged in the implementation that follows. We know what works. We know what is at stake. We know that ending AIDS is within reach. We cannot afford political hesitation.
GATE will work with our members and partners before, during and after the HLM. We will organize consultations, produce policy briefs, support our communities to connect and share priorities, be present in New York and overall hold States accountable and keep HIV on the agenda.
An AIDS-free generation is possible, and together we can make it happen! Erika Castellanos
