The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development takes ​to scale ​what the AIDS response has been working towards for 30 years—a multisectoral, rights-based, people-centred approach that addresses the determinants of health and well-being. The individual stories in this series highlight the linkages between HIV and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), each told from the personal perspective of people affected by HIV. The series paints a picture of how interconnected HIV is with the SDGs and how interdependent the SDGs are with each other. Most importantly, the stories show us the progress we have achieved with the AIDS response and how far we have left to go with the SDGs.  

When friends and family stopped coming to Mona Balani’s house, she was stoic. But worse was to come when no one would play with her six-year-old.

“My elder son had to face so much discrimination at that time,” Mona recalled, when she and her husband tested positive for HIV in 1999. “Relatives would say nasty things to him: ‘Your parents will die one day, and you will die too’.”

Holding back tears, she remembered that every time she came home in the evening, her son would hug her and ask her not to leave him alone. Mona’s husband had been sick off and on for three years. He was eventually diagnosed with TB. Because of the couple’s HIV status, sometimes medical staff would refuse to admit him to the hospital.

“More than once, doctors, nurses or lab technicians made objectionable sexual remarks,” Mona said. Because of how people responded to them, they often felt like they had committed a crime.

Meanwhile her youngest son became sick and was later diagnosed with TB. Mona explained that the mounting costs of medicines for her husband and her two-year-old meant she could not afford HIV treatment for herself as well.

Sadly, her youngest son died a month later. “I knew I had to overcome everything and move forward and live for my older son,” she said.

In 2002 Mona found out that she too had TB of the lungs. She began and completed treatment within the stipulated six-month period. Three years later, Mona’s husband’s condition worsened. He passed away in 2005. Her ordeal did not end there. The following year she developed abdominal TB.

“When I was getting tested for TB I had to be admitted to the hospital for a night to get my diagnosis done, but after looking at my HIV status the staff declined to take me in,” Mona said. She called a retired doctor she knew, who contacted a colleague of his so that she could stay.

“Even after admitting me, the doctor who examined me asked me to replace all the equipment used and the bedsheet from the bed. The doctor would always wear double gloves before examining me,” recalls Mona.

By then, Mona had been on antiretroviral therapy and she started her TB treatment. She also decided she could help fight stigma surrounding TB and HIV.

In 2007 she began working with the Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS in remote areas of Rajasthan. Ten years later she lives in New Delhi and works for the India HIV/AIDS Alliance. She dreams of a world where people affected by HIV and TB have rights and are respected and can lead normal lives, ensuring healthy lives and well-being for all at all ages.

“People think that HIV only leads to death, but that is not true,” Mona said. “I proved to the world that you can live a healthy life with HIV, and I am still leading a healthy life.”

SDG 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Good health is a prerequisite for progress on ending AIDS. Ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all at all ages, including people living with or at risk of HIV, is essential to sustainable development. For example, successfully ending the AIDS epidemic will require enormous health service scale-up, with a focus on community services, targeted testing strategies, ensuring treatment is offered to people following diagnosis (including regimes appropriate for babies, children and adolescents), and regularly support and monitoring for people on antiretroviral medicines. Eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV depends on providing immediate treatment to pregnant women living with HIV, integrating HIV and sexual and reproductive health services, and engaging male partners in prevention and treatment services.

Increasing service integration in a way that responds to individuals’ needs—whether that be combining tuberculosis (TB) and HIV services or providing youth-friendly HIV, sexual and reproductive health services—leads the way in reshaping efficient, accessible and equitable health services for HIV and beyond. HIV can be ended only by promoting the right of all people to access high-quality HIV and health services without discrimination.

The following stories explore how inextricably linked SDG 3—ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages—and ending AIDS are. For every individual, protecting and maintaining good health underpins the capacity to fulfil their multiple roles within family, community, society and the economy. Mona’s story recounts her struggles with HIV and TB, discrimination, and the right to be treated fairly and with dignity. Lidia works with partners in the health services, community health system and private sector to ensure female seasonal coffee pickers are given the information and services they need to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Sergey describes his experience of how a harm reduction programme helped him overcome his addiction while adhering to antiretroviral therapy. Christine tells her story of how, as a community health worker, she reaches out to women where and when they need her to prevent mother-to-child transmission.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development takes ​to scale ​what the AIDS response has been working towards for 30 years—a multisectoral, rights-based, people-centred approach that addresses the determinants of health and well-being. The individual stories in this series highlight the linkages between HIV and related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), each told from the personal perspective of people affected by HIV. The series paints a picture of how interconnected HIV is with the SDGs and how interdependent the SDGs are with each other. Most importantly, the stories show us the progress we have achieved with the AIDS response and how far we have left to go with the SDGs.  

Eighteen years ago, at the age of 19, Florence Anam became pregnant. As a teenager she had been flattered by an older man showering her with attention. A good student in school and just about to start university, her parents told her that they were disappointed in her, but never brought up the subject again.

“When I was pregnant, there were never any questions of how I got in this situation or who was responsible,” Florence said. “Sex was a taboo topic and not a discussion that parents had with their children.”

Florence did not know of her HIV status until 2006. During a national Kenyan HIV prevention campaign, she and four other friends went to get tested. When the HIV tests confirmed she was living with HIV, she was shocked.

The reality hit when a year later Florence was dismissed from her job because of her HIV status. “Back then, there were no HIV networks for young people, neither was there as much information available, so I contacted a woman who had been featured in a newspaper and lashed out at her, asking, “Why am I not allowed to be productive if I am not sick yet?”” explains Florence.

That woman, Asunta Wagura, was the Director of the Kenya Network of Women with AIDS. Asunta asked Florence to come in and see the organization, for which she then started volunteering. She describes the experience as a serious reality check. She heard other women’s stories, of how many of them lived in poverty and dealt with violence. “It was like plunging into this world that as a protected child I never even knew existed; all of a sudden my problems became trivial and I knew I needed to let other people know what I was seeing every day.”

She also became more vocal about HIV, bringing a lot of attention to herself and her status.
“I was done with having people dictate to me what their opinions about my life were, I missed the girl that I was and I desperately needed to get out that hole,” she says.

Part of Florence’s advocacy and communications work with the International Community of Women Living with HIV involves monthly mentoring meetings with girls and young women living with HIV. “I want to raise their consciousness regarding their life 20 years down the road,” Ms Anam says.

Florence considers that her life is full. Her 17-year-old son and 11-year-old adopted daughter affectionately chide her for bringing up sex and other “awkward” subjects at the dinner table.
“I am like the weird mother speaking about sex and responsible sexual behaviour in the most insane places,” Ms Anam says. “I keep repeating to them that decisions you make now, however immature, will have a long-term impact.”

SDG 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Gender inequality, discrimination and harmful practices create a culture that negatively impact women, girls, men and boys. Girls and women are disproportionately vulnerable to and impacted by HIV infection. Frequently they do not have the ability to control or determine their own life choices, such as going to school, who they marry or have sex with, the number of children they have, the health-care services they access, their employment options, or their ability to voice an opinion and be respected.

Programmes designed to educate and inform girls and women about the risks of HIV and provide some means of protecting themselves are essential building blocks of the AIDS response. And yet, however necessary, they are insufficient. Access to comprehensive sexuality education and sexual and reproductive health services can only ever be partially successful in protecting girls and young women from HIV if their potential male partners remain unaware of or unwilling to change their behaviour. Increasing male awareness of the risks of HIV, providing men and boys with the means of prevention, and enabling them to change their own behaviour and see the benefits of a balanced and respectful relationship are essential to decreasing the number of new HIV infections and increasing gender equity.

Like many young women, Florence grew up without comprehensive sexuality education or access to sexual and reproductive health services. She has made it her life’s work to expand youth-friendly HIV and health services and to mentor young women living with HIV, giving them hope for the future. Florence’s story encapsulates how important progress on SDG 5—achieve gender equality and empower all girls and women—is to enabling young women and men to make informed decisions on protecting themselves from HIV infection.

Empowerment and meaningful participation of communities most affected by sustainable development issues is fundamental to reaching global health, development, rights, and gender goals - including ending AIDS by 2030. This message was emphasized by global development partners at the Leaving No-One Behind in Decision-making: Setting the Example in the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Era event held on 18 July - Nelson Mandela Day - during the UN High-Level Political Forum in New York.

Hosted by UNAIDS, the UNAIDS PCB NGO delegation, the Government of Botswana and the Government of Portugal, the event began with keynote speeches from Musah Lumumbah,
Ugandan youth advocate and UNAIDS PCB NGO delegate and Jenna Ortega, actress and activist. Panel members Slumber Tsogwane, Botswana Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, François Delattre, Ambassador of  France to the United Nations in New York, Alessandra Nilo Gestos, Brazil and UNAIDS PCB NGO delegate and Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director were led by facilitator Ebony Johnson, gender and community mobilization advocate, through a dynamic discussion. The session considered lessons learned from the AIDS response, where multisectoral, multistakeholder partnerships and community mobilization, leadership and inclusion has been critical to progress, and how to consolidate these types of inclusive partnerships to help drive impact across the SDGs.

Interventions focused on examples of how and where meaningful community involvement in the planning, programme development, decision making and implementation within the AIDS response not only empowers the voice of those most affected but is also more effective in ensuring the most appropriate policy and planning, tailored to realities and needs.

The session emphasized how inclusion of community representatives in governance processes, at country, regional and global levels, is a powerful mechanism to foster solutions with impact. UNAIDS’  inclusive governance model, where civil society are members of the Programme Coordinating Board, was highlighted as a unique example of how United Nations governance systems can take forward the SDGs in a way which is accountable to and owned by ‘the peoples’ it serves, and which truly leaves no one behind.

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“Eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity in a changing world” is the theme of the 2017 United Nations High-Level Political Forum review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which is taking place in New York, United States of America, from 10 to 19 July.

The 2017 High-Level Political Forum is undertaking an in-depth review of the SDGs on poverty (SDG 1), hunger (SDG 2), health (SDG 3), gender equality (SDG 5), infrastructure and innovation (SDG 9), oceans (SDG 14) and means of implementation and global partnership for sustainable development (SDG 17).

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development takes to scale what the AIDS response has been working towards for 30 years—a multisectoral, rights-based, people-centred approach that addresses the determinants of health and well-being. Speaking at the Leveraging Interlinkages for Effective Implementation of the SDGs panel, Michel Sidibé, the UNAIDS Executive Director, shared the experiences and lessons learned from the AIDS response, as well as from the work of UNAIDS, in addressing the many intersections between the AIDS epidemic and other health, human rights and broader development issues as a pathfinder to help achieve the SDGs. 

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What do global law firm DLA Piper and UNAIDS have in common? Surprisingly, a lot. Both are working towards meeting the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, both recognize the importance of the rule of law to development and equality and together they are working to strengthen legal protections and access to justice for people living with HIV and key populations.

DLA Piper is a global business law firm with offices in more than 40 countries and has one of the world’s largest pro bono practices led by a dedicated team of lawyers. In 2016, it donated more than 230 000 hours to pro bono and community projects. Rule of law and access to justice is at the heart of its work.

DLA Piper and UNAIDS have been collaborating for more than five years, assisting countries to improve their legal protections for people living with HIV and key populations. Before the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) existed, DLA Piper and UNAIDS were working together on the intersection between ending the AIDS epidemic (SDG 3), access to justice and the rule of law (SDG 16) and developing their public–private partnership (SDG 17).

With a new focus on the rule of law in the global community, and the importance of innovative partnerships, DLA Piper and UNAIDS have strengthened their collaboration. In 2017, DLA Piper seconded a full-time human rights lawyer to UNAIDS headquarters and UNAIDS and DLA Piper continue to explore new ways of working together to create a legally empowering environment for people living with HIV and key populations.

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Ministers of health of the Group of Twenty (G20) member countries will meet for the first time in Berlin, Germany, on 19 and 20 May to discuss a coordinated global response to global health challenges. The G20 member countries are focusing on global health for the first time, reaffirming their commitment to translating the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development into practice in the health and development sectors.

Health is key to the three main pillars of Germany’s G20 presidency—building resilience, improving sustainability and assuming responsibility.

Global health concerns, such as infectious disease outbreaks and antimicrobial resistance, will be the main topics of discussion, given their severe impact on the lives and well-being of millions of people as well as on the global economy. The G20 health ministers will focus on the need for strengthening health systems to ensure healthy populations, underpin strong economies and safeguard against disease outbreaks with pandemics.

Collective action and sustained leadership will be needed to address critical global health issues, including ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. The G20’s role will be pivotal to developing concerted action to address HIV in G20 countries—where 15.4 million people are living with HIV and nearly a million became newly infected with HIV in 2015—as well as championing global solidarity to accelerate progress globally. Currently, G20 countries provide 84% of the total official development assistance for AIDS in low- and middle-income countries.

Investing in the AIDS response will have a multiplier effect on G20 priorities as it will spur progress on tuberculosis, strengthen health systems, create jobs and drive results across the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Global Review Panel on the Future of the UNAIDS Joint Programme Model has issued its final report, Refining and reinforcing the UNAIDS Joint Programme Model, which offers guidance on ways the Joint Programme can step up efforts to deliver more results for people living with and affected by HIV.

Around 100 participants, representing a wide range of stakeholders, including United Nations Member States, United Nations agencies and civil society, gathered in Geneva, Switzerland, on 28 April to discuss the findings and recommendations of the panel at a global multistakeholder consultation.

The panel validated the vision and model of UNAIDS, recognizing its irreplaceable value in the AIDS ecosystem and underscored its strong foundation of assets—among them, country presence, political legitimacy and UNAIDS’ role as an international standard-bearer for producing data and evidence that is used to drive decision-making.

In its report, the panel recommends that UNAIDS should continue to transfer human and financial resources to the countries most affected by the AIDS epidemic. Other recommendations include reconfiguring United Nations country AIDS teams to be more responsive to the specific nature of the HIV epidemic and to improve accountability, including by engaging a range of stakeholders at all levels in monitoring progress on the AIDS response.

By refining its ways of working, UNAIDS will be better positioned to fulfil its unique mandate of exercising political leadership, providing strategic information and supporting the engagement of countries with other partners, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The report details how UNAIDS could further enhance its support to countries in reaching the ambitious Fast-Track Targets by 2020—reducing new HIV infections to fewer than 500 000, reducing AIDS-related deaths to fewer than 500 000 and eliminating HIV-related stigma and discrimination—which were adopted by United Nations Member States at the United Nations General Assembly High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS in June 2016. The report also recognizes UNAIDS as a model and pathfinder for progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and as an innovative joined-up approach at the cutting-edge of United Nations reform.

The Global Review Panel, requested by the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board, was set up to make recommendations for a sustainable and fit-for-purpose UNAIDS. It focused on three fundamental pillars of the Joint Programme: financing and accountability, joint working and governance. It was co-convened by Helen Clark, Chair of the United Nations Development Group, and Michel Sidibé, UNAIDS Executive Director. The Panel Co-Chairs were Awa Coll-Seck, Health Minister of Senegal, and Lennarth Hjelmåker, Sweden’s Ambassador for Global Health. It undertook an extensive process of consultations with a wide range of stakeholders, including at the global and country levels. A revised operating model of UNAIDS will be presented at the Programme Coordinating Board meeting in June for consideration and approval, which will take into account the recommendations of the Global Review Panel.

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