UNAIDS Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics

Inequalities are driving today’s pandemics and have been responsible for the world missing the Global AIDS targets. These inequalities are actionable when they are tackled, especially when they are addressed together with social determinants of health alongside biomedical interventions.

The UNAIDS Global AIDS Strategy, End Inequalities, End AIDS 2021-2026 led to the adoption of the 2021 commitments in the Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS. Actioning these commitments requires going beyond identifying disparities between groups; it implies understanding the mechanisms of power, policy, and social action through which inequality is generated and maintained in pandemic contexts, so that they can be addressed.

UNAIDS has set up up a Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics to address this gap. The Council will focus on HIV and AIDS but engage with lessons from other disease areas to advance efforts to understand and build inequalitysensitive pandemic prevention preparedness and response. 

Direct beneficiaries include policy-makers, civil society, and opinion groups.

Indirect beneficiaries are people living with, affected and most vulnerable to HIV, and people affected by adverse events of pandemics.

Outcome 1: Public and political awareness on the link between inequality, AIDS and other pandemics is increased.

Outcome 2: Evidence to better understand how inequalities at national and international levels drive pandemics, including AIDS, and how pandemics fuel inequalities is generated and used to inform policy briefs and engagement with governments.

Outcome 3: Innovative solutions, strategies, and frameworks are produced to inform the Pandemic Treaty process, the review of the Sustainable Development Goals, the Summit of the Future and other policy and normative initiatives.

Risultati principali attesi:  

• UNAIDS global strategic initiatives and partnerships are effectively convened and leveraged to address gaps, remove barriers and reduce risk and vulnerability for communities affected by HIV. 
• Policy guidance, advocacy and technical support provided, and knowledge products shared to support and advocate for integrated systems for health, social protection, innovations and technologies. The purpose of this policy guidance is to reduce health inequalities for people living with, at risk of and affected by HIV. 
• Sustained and enhanced political commitments to end AIDS and implement the Global AIDS Strategy 2021- 2026 and end HIV-related inequalities. 

Risultati fasi precedenti:  

1. UNAIDS developed the Global AIDS Strategy, End Inequalities, End AIDS 2021-2026, which provides an inequality lens to close the gaps preventing progress to end AIDS and sets out bold new targets and polices to be reached by 2025.
2. UNAIDS developed an Inequality Framework and Toolbox to guide the UN Joint Team in supporting countries to identify, measure and address inequalities. Brazil, Cambodia, Ghana, Moldova and South Africa have piloted the toolkit.
3. UNAIDS convenes the Global Partnership for action to eliminate all forms of HIV related stigma and discrimination which was established in 2018. As of December 2022, 42 countries have signed on. 
4. UNAIDS established the high-profile Education Plus initiative to empower adolescent girls and young women who are at greater risk of HIV infection in Sub-Saharan Africa, due to inequalities. 
5. UNAIDS partnered with the University of Harvard, University of Connecticut and the University of Witswatersrand to conduct analyses on the relationship between inequality and HIV. These papers will inform the work of the Council. 
6. In 2022, over 60 countries were supported by UNAIDS to address stigma and discrimination.