The board of UNAIDS — a joint program established in 1996 to better coordinate the AIDS response across the United Nations — has agreed to set up a working group to guide the organization’s transition and integration into the wider U.N. system, and address lingering questions about its future as 2025 concludes.
UNAIDS is currently composed of a secretariat headquartered in Geneva and a set of U.N. agencies that serve as cosponsors. In 2025, in response to calls for changes within the joint program and broader U.N. system, and facing a funding crisis amid significant reductions in donor funding, the secretariat launched a restructuring effort that reduces its staff by 55%, and relocates remaining staff outside of Geneva.
But that also prompted a discussion on the further transformation and integration of its work in the years ahead — and potentially the closing down of the secretariat by 2030, if the global HIV response “progresses well.”