Canada and UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is the lead multilateral organization coordinating the global effort to end HIV/AIDS as a global threat by 2030. UNAIDS brings together the efforts and resources of 11 United Nations organizations involved in the HIV/AIDS response and plays a key role in coordinating their respective contributions. These 11 organizations are:

• the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
• UNICEF
• the World Food Programme
• the United Nations Development Programme
• the United Nations Population Fund
• the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
• the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
• the International Labour Organization
• UNESCO
• the World Health Organization
• the World Bank

UNAIDS works to address the gender and human rights dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in order to achieve the targets set out in the Global AIDS Strategy 2021 to 2026 and the ambitious 2025 targets and commitments enshrined in the UN General Assembly’s 2021 political declaration on HIV and AIDS.

Canada's support for UNAIDS

Canada has provided over $100 million in financial support to UNAIDS since 1996 and is currently serving a 2020-to-2022 term as a member of the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board. Between 2017 and 2022, Canadian commitments to UNAIDS’ core funding amount to $20 million.

Canada supports UNAIDS’ focus on the following priorities:

• Enhance coordination and coherence across the HIV/AIDS sector among the program’s 11 partner organizations and with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
• Support the efforts of UNAIDS to respond to the gender and rights dimensions of the epidemic, including the sexual and reproductive health and rights of key populations—for example, adolescent girls and young women
• Strengthen institutional effectiveness to improve the ability of UNAIDS to monitor and deliver results.

UNAIDS Achievements

With the support of donors like Canada, UNAIDS has helped to achieve the following results:

• Between 2016 and 2020, there has been a 14% increase in the number of those people living with HIV who know their status, a 20% increase in the number accessing treatment, and a 22% increase in people living with HIV who have successfully reduced their viral load to undetectable levels
• The global rollout of HIV treatment over the past decade has saved millions of lives: UNAIDS estimates that 16.6 million AIDS-related deaths have been averted over the last two decades
• New HIV infections among children declined by more than half from 2010 to 2020, mainly because of the increased provision of antiretroviral therapy to pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV

Additional UNAIDS achievements

• In March 2021, the UNAIDS Programme Coordinating Board adopted the 2021-2026 Global AIDS Strategy; a bold new approach that harnesses an inequalities lens to close the gaps that are preventing progress towards ending AIDS and introduced new ambitious treatment targets
• In June 2021, the UN General Assembly High-Level Meeting on AIDS committed to ensuring that 95% of women and girls of reproductive age have their HIV and sexual and reproductive healthcare service needs met by 2025, including antenatal and maternal care, information and counselling.

Related links

• UNAIDS