From 3 to 5 February 2026, members of the THRIVE Consortium convened in Nairobi, Kenya, for their annual in-person meeting.
The Consortium’s annual meeting provides an ever-more critical space to maintain and nurture in the context of escalating anti-gender attacks, severe funding cuts across the global HIV response, the restructuring of UNAIDS, and
increasing restrictions on civic space.
Against this backdrop, the Consortium positions itself as a model for cross-regional coalition-building and as a political space for solidarity and strategic alignment. The 2026 THRIVE in-person meeting confirmed the Consortium’s value, demonstrating that regional networks continue to innovate and lead in extremely constrained contexts. In the current context of fragmentation and scarcity, radical cross-regional solidarity and global coordination are essential to moving forward.
The meeting resulted in five key outcomes:
- Regional updates, providing a consolidated overview of the 2025 achievements and challenges of each member organization.
- Completion of the 2025 reports, developed collaboratively with technical support from GATE and accompanied by updated reporting guidance and administrative requirements.
- Refined Consortium’s Ways of Working, strengthening our shared governance and decision-making processes.
- Joint messaging and communication materials were developed to increase the visibility of the Consortium and its members throughout the year.
- A forward-looking collaboration roadmap, including a coordinated engagement strategy for the AIDS 2026 Conference that takes place in Río de Janeiro, Brazil, in July 2026, and initial ideas for future joint initiatives.
The next quarterly meeting will focus on refining the Consortium’s Ways of Working and further developing the 2026 and beyond Collaboration Roadmap. This will include further fleshing out the regional health promoter concept into a structured proposal and continuing the preparations for AIDS 2026.
