Vulnerable Populations Will Suffer With UNAIDS Early Closure

By Ed Holt
BRATISLAVA, Dec 1 2025 – “It’s like adding fuel to an already burning fire,” says Aditia Taslim.

“We have not recovered from the impact of the US funding cuts earlier this year, and closing down UNAIDS prematurely will only make things worse, especially for key populations and other criminalized groups, including people who use drugs,” Taslim, who is Advocacy Lead at the International Network of People Who Use Drugs (INPUD), tells IPS.

Her view is shared widely by HIV activists around the world who were stunned by a proposal from UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in September, included in a report on progress on UN reforms, to shut down the UN’s main agency to fight HIV/AIDS next year.

UNAIDS, the civil society groups that sit on its board, experts, and national governments across the globe had already been working on a transformation plan for the agency, which would see it end in its present form around 2030 when current HIV targets expire.

And many still do not understand exactly why closure next year is now being planned.

“There is a lot of confusion around this right now. We’re not sure why 2026 was chosen. Perhaps it was because we were in fact already in a process of transformation,” Angeli Achrekar, Deputy Executive Director of the Programme Branch at UNAIDS, told IPS.

But the proposal has been met with vociferous pushback—a call from the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board (PCB) NGO Delegation to the Secretary General urging him to reconsider was endorsed by more than 1 000 NGOs.

World Aids Day has been commemorated since 1988 and is a significant platform for people to unite against the disease. Credit: UNAIDS

Many of those same groups have warned that if the early closure does go ahead, gains in fighting the disease will be at risk, and, some are certain, lives will be lost unnecessarily.

“If this happens, the world will be much less effective in preventing and treating HIV, which means more people dying from a disease that is completely preventable and treatable. There’s no doubt in my mind that closing UNAIDS will lead to more HIV infections and deaths,” Julia Lukomnik, Strategic Advisor at Dutch organization Aidsfonds, told IPS.

UNAIDS, which started operations in 1996, is unique among UN structures in that its governing board actually includes civil society groups. This, experts say, has meant that in all its work, those on the ground working directly with the communities affected by the disease – not just people living with HIV (PLHIV), but also key populations most at risk, including drug users, sex workers, members of the LGBT+ community, and others—have had a crucial say in developing its policy and implementing its work.

Indeed, while the agency’s activities include treatment projects, in many countries it is seen as a vital bridge, directly and through partnerships with local NGOs, between communities and local, regional, and national authorities.

“If UNAIDS were to close in 2026, the impact would be significant, particularly in countries like Vietnam where community-led organizations depend on UNAIDS for data, technical guidance, coordination, and engagement space. UNAIDS has played a critical bridging role, connecting governments, donors, and civil society in Vietnam,” Doan Thanh Tung, Executive Director at Lighthouse Vietnam, one of the largest LGBTQ+ organizations in Vietnam, told IPS.

This is of particular concern at a time when marginalization and criminalization of key populations and PLHIV in many countries is worsening.

UNAIDS has played a crucial role in advocating for the rights of key populations and PLHIV, including helping bring in landmark legislation enshrining some rights and access to services.

UNAIDS workers provide support to communities in need of their services. The organization and its workers have been badly affected by the impact of a sudden acceleration of cuts to international HIV financing. Credit: UNAIDS

Campaigners fear that without UNAIDS presence, some communities would very quickly face increased marginalization or criminalization, without anyone to speak up for them.

“We’re in a context of increasing criminalization of key populations for the HIV epidemic. We know—in part because of UNAIDS— that violating the rights of key populations leads to increased HIV cases. When you criminalize gay and trans people, you increase HIV cases. When you criminalize sex workers, you increase HIV cases. When you criminalize safe injection sites, you increase HIV cases,” said Lukomnik.

“Closing the UN body that most strongly advocates for the human rights of these groups at the very time when these rights are increasingly threatened will almost certainly increase both rights violations and HIV cases,” she added.

Within UNAIDS, officials are aware this could be a problem.

“The question is where can advocacy for key populations be maintained [without UNAIDS] in countries. UNAIDS can raise issues to do with key populations with governments. Will other organizations be able to do that?” Eammon Murphy, UNAIDS Director, Regional Support Teams for the Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe and Central Asia regions, told IPS.

“One of the critical functions we perform is being the voice of communities. The voice of the community must be safeguarded at the local, regional and global levels,” Achrekar said.

As well as allowing it to advocate for communities, the trust that communities have with the agency means it can have a better view of an epidemic in a given country than state authorities might have, say experts.

They highlight UNAIDS’ vital role in collecting and evaluating data on the disease in specific communities and using data to develop effective interventions and national policies and set HIV targets. If that monitoring and evaluation capacity is lost suddenly with no time to replace it properly, the impact on authorities’ efforts to fight an HIV epidemic could be devastating, they argue.

“UNAIDS set the targets for the global AIDS response that has given countries the ability to shape their strategic plans to respond to HIV and AIDS. Those targets and strategic plans ensured high-impact interventions that led to a reduction of new HIV infections, addressing inequalities, gender-based violence and stigma and discrimination against people with HIV or AIDS,” Tendayi Westerhof, National Director, Pan African Positive Women’s Coalition-Zimbabwe, told IPS.

“It was responsible for the Global AIDS  Programme report that monitored progress of the AIDS response by countries. If UNAIDS is closed, this will have a huge impact on the monitoring of progress by countries in fighting AIDS,” she added.

The proposed closure of the agency also comes at a time when HIV groups are still reeling from recent upheavals in global aid funding.

The withdrawal of US aid at the start of this year, which had previously accounted for 73 percent of international HIV/AIDS financing, has already had a devastating effect on the fight against the disease, forcing many organizations on the frontline of the HIV response to close.

UNAIDS modeling forecasts the funding cuts could lead to an additional 6.6 million new HIV infections and 4.2 million AIDS-related deaths by 2029.

Closing UNAIDS against this backdrop could further imperil the sustainability of the HIV response in some places, especially in those where services for key populations are already underfunded.

“We have seen the impact of the abrupt funding cuts from the US, which have crippled a lot of harm reduction services and forced many drug user-led networks and organizations to close their operations. Harm reduction has also been severely underfunded. Closing down UNAIDS will only create reasons for governments to close down services and programmes, as well as funding for people who use drugs,” said Taslim.

“In most low- and middle-income countries, services and programmes for people who use drugs… are still heavily dependent on international donors. Closing UNAIDS prematurely means that services and programmes for our community will be the first to be removed from national priorities. There is no sustainability strategy in place for services and programmes for people who use drugs and other key populations, as well as other criminalized and marginalized communities,” he added.

Tung warned that dismantling UNAIDS at a time when global funding for HIV is shrinking “would likely erode global-to-local solidarity, reduce community engagement in the HIV response, and weaken independent data systems, which could further exacerbate the epidemic and undo decades of progress in HIV prevention and control that would be extremely difficult to recover.”

But while activists warn of the potential for a 2026 closure of UNAIDS to profoundly impact the world’s HIV response, they also point out that so far it is only a proposal and that there is some hope it may not come to pass.

“The proposal to end UNAIDS in 2026 was made by the UN Secretary General, but it’s really up to the UNAIDS PCB to make this call,” said Lukomnik.

UNAIDS officials point out that the agency had already begun a process of transforming itself.

Earlier this year, the PCB set out its plan to restructure between 2025 – 2027, and then review its structure and mandate again in 2027. It had been expected that after that, a transition period would see key UNAIDS functions shifted to other parts of the UN system or other actors involved in the HIV response by 2030.

The first phase of this restructuring involved the agency this year beginning a huge reduction in the number of its staff and offices around the world—both are to be cut by more than 50 percent.

Achrekar said the transformation was in part a response to global funding changes but also to reflect moves towards greater sustainability in the global HIV response.

“Our transformation is partly because of the current funding volatility, but it was already underway before that. We are focused on ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and even before the General Secretary’s proposal, we at UNAIDS knew that we had to transform for where the HIV response was shifting to in the future—that as countries start to approach 2030 HIV targets, the HIV response would need to be sustainable after 2030. Our transformation means we can be fit for when the HIV response needs to become sustainably supported by countries,” said Achrekar.

“We are not certain if this SG proposal can be turned back. But we believe there could be a way to bring some coherence to what the SG has proposed and the transition we had already planned. UNAIDS is not afraid of transforming,” she added.

However, if the proposal does come to pass and UNAIDS closes next year, the organization is hoping others involved in the global HIV response will be able to step up, to some extent, to help maintain the response.

“We are just one player in the HIV response and all the others have critical roles too. The global solidarity in the HIV response must be maintained in future and we have to be able to safeguard what is critical in the HIV response and the people affected by HIV,” Achrekar said.

IPS UN Bureau Report

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