Walking the Rights Path: Civil Society’s Role in Ending AIDS by 2030

World AIDS Day 2024 under the theme “Take the Rights Path: My Health, My Right!” challenges us to consider how we are advancing health and human rights, especially in the context of the HIV epidemic. 

The global HIV response has made significant progress. The 2024 UNAIDS report, The Urgency of Now: AIDS at a Crossroads, reminds us that the tools to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 are within reach. We are at a critical point in our decades-long fight against HIV.

However, achieving this goal hinges on our collective ability to protect human rights and address the inequalities that keep individuals from accessing life-saving HIV prevention and treatment services.

We must urgently tackle gaps in the realization of human rights for everyone. Civil society and community-led organizations must stand together to advocate against punitive laws, push for inclusive policies, promote a rights-based approach in all elements of HIV programmes, and hold our leaders accountable to their commitments to health and human rights. There is a critical need for our systematic and collective action in the face of a global rise in rights-related threats to the HIV response.

Domestic Investment: A Critical Pillar

Domestic investment in health systems remains fundamental to building a robust and sustainable HIV response. The 2024 global AIDS update highlights that progress towards the 95–95–95 testing and treatment targets lags most in regions where investments in health systems are inadequate. Prevention services often reach fewer than 50 percent of populations at the greatest risk of HIV and some regions continue to report a rise in new HIV infections, particularly among adolescent girls and young women, and other vulnerable and marginalized populations. Investing in strong and inclusive health systems is thus also a matter of protecting human rights—vital to realizing the right to health for people living with, affected by or at risk of HIV.

Scaling up HIV prevention is essential. This includes scaling up pre-exposure prophylaxis (oral PrEP), rolling out new prevention options for choice, the dapivirine vaginal ring (PrEP ring), long injectable prep (cabotegravir), and lenacapavir, post exposure prophylaxis (PEP) and other even driven prevention, increased access to condoms, treatment as prevention (U=U), comprehensive sex education, and harm reduction programs. These investments not only address immediate needs, but also yield long-term benefits by reducing the financial and social costs of untreated HIV.

Governments, as duty-bearers of human rights, must fulfill their commitments and sustainability to health by prioritizing domestic funding for these critical services. We must continue to advocate for more sustainable, inclusive health financing. 

Rights-Based Approaches for Better Outcomes

The UNAIDS World AIDS Day report, Take the Rights Path, underscores the clear link between human rights protections and better outcomes in HIV prevention and treatment. Human rights violations – such as punitive laws, stigma, and discrimination – perpetuate vulnerabilities to HIV and worsen inequalities in access to services. 

For example, laws that criminalize same-sex relationships, drug use, or sex work create significant barriers to accessing lifesaving HIV services. Similarly, impunity for gender-based violence and unsafe health services further block progress. Even with evidence that investing in girls’ education significantly reduces the risk of HIV infection among girls and young women, disparities in access to education persist. 

All of these are intrinsically linked. People who are being discriminated against, threatened with and facing violence, kept from education or an adequate standard of living do not have the opportunity to realize their right to health. Human rights-based approaches are not only a moral imperative but also the only solution to tackle the social and structural factors linked to HIV.

Choice and Equity in HIV Services

Empowering individuals with the ability to make informed choices about their health is also central to ending AIDS as a public health threat. In turn, choice can only exist in an environment free from fear, stigma, and discrimination. We must ensure that the full range of effective HIV prevention options are available to everyone, particularly marginalized populations disproportionately affected by HIV, in order to enable choice.

Equity must be further prioritized in the HIV response with a close consideration of the communities that are facing increased human rights threats. In 2023, 9.3 million people – nearly a quarter of those living with HIV – are not receiving antiretroviral therapy, and many communities remain underserved by prevention services. Community-led initiatives are vital to closing gaps and in particular, supporting services for key populations. By directing resources to underfunded areas, we can better ensure that no one is left behind.

A Call to Action

‘Taking the rights path’ to ending AIDS requires political courage and sustained leadership but it is also the only option for lasting change. As the UNAIDS report stresses:

Many of the disparities that undermine progress towards ending AIDS as a public health threat are the direct result of violations of fundamental human rights, which generate inequalities that prevent realization for many millions of people of the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

To end this crisis, we must work together to uphold fundamental human rights. We must push for investments in inclusive health systems, champion choice, advance equity, and protect the rights of all. Civil society must be a bridge and anchor in grounding every part of the HIV response to securing human rights. We call on civil society partners, stakeholders, political leaders, advocates, development partners, and communities to commit towards a future where “My Health, My Right” is a reality for everyone.