The HIV/AIDS response in Eastern Europe and Central Asia cannot be treated as business as usual in the 2026 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS!
EECA Communities and Civil Society call on co-facilitators and Member States delegates of the 2026 UN High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS to ensure that the new Political Declaration responds directly to the realities facing Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
The joint statement warns that EECA remains the only region where both new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths have increased since 2010. It argues that this is not a technical failure, but the result of political choices, including punitive laws, criminalisation, shrinking civic space, chronic underfunding of prevention and community-led responses, war and displacement, and the continued failure to protect the people most affected by HIV.
The signatories call on Member States to ensure that the Political Declaration speaks clearly against criminalisation and punitive laws as drivers of the HIV epidemic; protects civic space and community-led organisations; confronts the risks of donor transition and retreat; sustains treatment, prevention and harm reduction; and improves access to medicines, diagnostics and new technologies.
The statement also calls for integrated, people-centred responses to HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis; continuity of care for migrants, refugees and forcibly displaced people; direct political and financial support for community-led responses; explicit recognition of all key populations; meaningful community engagement; and strengthened UN leadership on HIV, with UNAIDS at the centre of coordination, accountability and engagement with communities.
Prepared and signed by 40 community and civil society organisations from across Eastern Europe and Central Asia and neighbouring regions, the statement urges Member States to choose a Political Declaration that protects communities, sustains services, removes punitive barriers, preserves civic space and turns commitments into funded, measurable and accountable action.