Winnie Byanyima: "Communities light the way"

UNAIDS Executive Director World AIDS Day message.
"Communities are not in the way, they light the way," she said.
Full message:
Around the world, 9.2 million people living with HIV today do not have access to lifesaving treatment. Every minute a life is lost to AIDS. This is not fate. We can change it. We even know how.
To succeed, we must let communities on the frontlines of the AIDS pandemic lead the way.
The evidence is set out in our new World AIDS Day report and it is crystal clear.
It is communities who know best how to design HIV strategies to reach people most in need of services.
The youth empowerment group in Namibia using e-bikes to deliver services to young people who often cannot attend clinics because they are in school.
The community groups in Ukraine who, when war prevented people from getting to hospitals, organised community networks to rush life-saving HIV medicines to people across the country.
The grassroots movements who led the iconic struggles of the 1990s and early 2000s from South Africa to Thailand to Brazil, to challenge pharma monopoly of antiretroviral medicines. Their advocacy in the streets and before courts and parliaments pushed the cost of these lifesaving medicines down from $25,000 per person per year in 1995 to as low as $70 per person per year today. They continue to fight for new medical technologies to be available for everyone, everywhere.
There is no doubt: community leadership builds stronger and healthier societies.
Communities are the everyday heroes of the AIDS response.
To communities I say two things:
1. I salute you for your courage and sacrifice. Thank you for continuing to drive forward progress against AIDS.
2. I stand in solidarity with you.
That is why this World AIDS Day is not only a moment to honour the leadership of communities. It is a call to action to governments to fully support communities’ life-saving work, and to remove the barriers that stand in their way.  
Too often, community leadership is unacknowledged, under-resourced, and in some places even under attack.
In 2021, member states of the United Nations renewed their commitment to supporting communities in the HIV response. To end AIDS as a public health threat, that commitment needs to be realised everywhere.
On this World AIDS Day, I urge governments, international organisations, and partners to do three things:
1. Ensure that communities’ leadership roles are made central in all HIV policies and programmes. As communities say, “nothing about us without us.”
2. Ensure that communities’ leadership roles are properly resourced. In 2012, over 31% of all HIV resources were channeled through civil society organizations. Nine years later, in 2021, that number fell to 20%. This backsliding in commitment has left many community-led organizations struggling to survive – and is costing lives.
3. Protect everyone’s human rights. Right now, anti-human rights, anti-women's rights, and anti-democracy forces threaten the work and lives of our brave community leaders. But we must be hopeful and remain vigilant in defense of human rights. I applaud the growing wave of countries who have been repealing the harmful colonial laws that criminalised LGBTQ people simply for being who they are. To protect everyone’s health, protect everyone’s human rights.
Communities are not in the way, they light the way. On this World AIDS Day, I say to you all: let communities lead!
unaids.org