A report on the AIDS funding landscape in the Asia–Pacific region, Investing for results: how Asia–Pacific countries can invest for ending AIDS, has been launched at a side event at the Asia–Pacific Intergovernmental Meeting on HIV and AIDS, which took place in Bangkok, Thailand, from 28 to 30 January. The report summarizes an analysis carried out by an independent advisory panel.
Convened jointly by UNAIDS and the World Bank and chaired by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, J.V.R. Prasada Rao, the 11-member panel was comprised of public health experts, policy leaders and representatives of civil society organizations.
With many countries in the region graduating to middle-income status, external funding is shrinking and the panel was tasked with resolving the funding gap.
It analysed the existing policy and funding commitments for the national AIDS response in the region and suggested a set of nine concrete recommendations to help guide and sustain the AIDS response in the coming years.
The recommendations included introducing funding transition plans to enable countries to take advantage of continued donor assistance while shifting to greater domestic investment, focusing resources where most new HIV infections occur and protecting funding for civil society.
“Without assured and scaled up funding over the next decade, there is a real danger of past gains being wiped out, leading to a resurgence of the epidemic.”
J.V.R. Prasada Rao, United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for AIDS in Asia and the Pacific
“Asia and the Pacific could become the first region to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030, if countries make the right strategic choices.”
Jan Beagle, Deputy Executive Director, UNAIDS
“In this region, we need to change our definition of success. We cannot use any longer a process definition of success. Our definition has to be about reducing HIV incidence and driving it as close to zero as possible.”
David Wilson, Global AIDS Program Director, World Bank
