Private Philanthropy is Critical to Ushering in the End of AIDS

The following is blog, written by FCAA’s Executive Director, John Barnes, reposted from a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals.

So far, 2016 has been a very busy year for the HIV/AIDS community. In early June, we gathered in New York for the United Nations High Level Meeting on ending the epidemic. This meeting was closely followed by the AIDS 2016 conference, notable for returning to Durban, South Africa. We last convened in Durban at the turn of the millennium — the dawning of the Millennium Development Goals — when an urgent call to halt the spread of AIDS was issued.

Today, we have updated goals to reach and a new timeline in which to reach them. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target 2030 as the deadline for ending AIDS as a public health threat.

If we thought 2016 was busy, the next several years are about to get much busier for our community.

Our goal, though, is within reach—closer than ever, in fact. Consider that, in 2000, fewer than 700,000 people received antiretroviral medicines; today, 15 million people have access to this life saving treatment and HIV infections have declined 35 percent. This represents enormous progress. Yet we can’t stop here. We have critical milestones to meet within a short window of opportunity. Without a sense of urgency and robust resources, we risk not only missing the 2030 deadline, but also backsliding and even the possibility of resurgence.

The full article is available here.