The United Nations High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS concluded with strong support for a new Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS. The document reaffirms the global commitment to ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and sets the political direction for the next phase of the international HIV response.
The declaration was adopted at a challenging moment: international funding is decreasing, multilateral cooperation is under pressure, and anti-rights movements are gaining ground in different parts of the world. Despite this, the majority of UN Member States confirmed that progress in the HIV response must not only be protected, but accelerated.
The new document reflects the key directions of the Global AIDS Strategy 2026–2031. Its priorities include expanding equitable access to HIV testing, treatment and prevention; closing funding gaps; protecting human rights and gender equality; ensuring access to modern medicines and technologies; and strengthening sustainable national HIV responses.
For Eastern Europe and Central Asia, these commitments are particularly important. The region continues to face the consequences of war, migration, economic instability, stigma and unequal access to health and social services. In many countries, international support and the work of civil society organisations have for years ensured access to prevention, testing, treatment, care and support for people who are often not reached by formal systems.
Sustainability, therefore, is not only a question of budgets. It is a question of whether people will continue to receive uninterrupted antiretroviral therapy; whether PrEP, PEP, testing, condoms, harm reduction, psychosocial support and health-system navigation will remain available; and whether services will be trusted by those who need them most. Trust matters because people seek support where they are not judged, where confidentiality is respected, and where the real barriers faced by key populations, migrants, refugees, women, young people and people living with HIV are understood.
A key signal of the new declaration is the reaffirmation of the central role of communities and civil society. Communities help reach people left outside official systems, support treatment adherence, identify service gaps and hold systems accountable. For EECA, this is critical: without community-led organisations, there can be no meaningful access, no effective prevention and no realistic path towards achieving the 2030 targets.
Member States also stressed that domestic resource mobilisation and international solidarity must reinforce each other rather than replace one another. This is essential for countries where transitions to national funding are already underway or being planned. Such transitions must be managed, fair and safe for people — not processes that lead to service closures, loss of trust or an increase in new HIV infections.
The next five years will be decisive. Political declarations alone do not change people’s lives — investments, accessible services, strong partnerships, rights protection and meaningful community participation do. But the new UN declaration provides an important framework: the HIV response must remain a global priority, and the 2030 goal is still achievable if countries move from commitments to action.
For Eastern Europe and Central Asia, this means one thing: prevention, treatment and support must be sustainable, accessible and grounded in human rights. Without this, it will be impossible either to protect the progress already achieved or to move forward.