Where does the world stand in the fight against HIV and AIDS?

published on December 1, 2015 by Molly Anders, in devex

In the fight to end the HIV and AIDS epidemic, a small window of opportunity is opening. Efforts have almost reached the half-way point for ending the disease: the number of those in treatment, 1.7 million people, is on track to surpass the number of new annual infections, about 2 million, by next year. The time is therefore ripe for reassessing what works, what doesn't, and where financing will come from to get and stay ahead of HIV and AIDS.

Devex spoke with Erin Hohlfelder, head of global health policy at the ONE Campaign about the most promising financing tools on the HIV and AIDS front, how the indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals and new financing trends can shape the donor landscape, and how organizations are adapting to the rapidly shifting need to reach the most marginalized populations.

Here are some highlights from that conversation:

What’s changed in the funding landscape for efforts against AIDS since 2000? What are the new challenges in battling donor complacency?

We know infectious diseases don’t wait around for opportune political moments, they will continue to spread if they’re not effectively targeted. And that’s the same for HIV, malaria, and even we saw in cases like Ebola. If donors get complacent or delay funding disbursements, we allow situations to get out of control and ultimately cost us a lot more money to fix than if we had addressed them head on.

One way to do this is to look at the health budgets not just for donor countries, but recipient countries as well. We then [compare that to] development assistance writ large, and in our report we look at African country spending on health writ large as well. We don’t think it’s right to just fight for AIDS funding or just fight for malaria funding if it robs Peter to pay Paul. We want to tackle disease intervention in a holistic way.

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Where does the world stand in the fight against HIV and AIDS?

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