2030 Agenda and UN Reform

2030 Agenda

The global AIDS response has made remarkable gains toward the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 3.3) of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030. This is a testament to the power of strong political commitment, global solidarity, evidence-driven strategies and mutually supportive partnerships between affected communities and public authorities. These gains, and the health and community systems that are being strengthened, are also yielding wider health, economic and developmental dividends that are accelerating progress towards other SDGs.

Thanks to the Joint Programme multisectoral outreach and expertise, the HIV response has substantial impact across the breadth of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. UNAIDS leverages the broader power of the whole United Nations (UN) system through the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks at country level and through UN regional and global cooperation fora to directly contribute to reaching the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 on good health and well-being and many others as illustrated below. In the most recent Report of the Secretary-General on the progress, entitled United to end AIDS - Report of the Secretary General, it states that ‘decades of sustained work and unprecedented multilateral and multisectoral solidarity have reduced the annual numbers of people acquiring HIV and dying from AIDS-related causes to their lowest levels in more than 30 years.’

Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty
Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty	Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty	Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty
Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty	Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty	Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty
Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty	Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty	Expand close How select SDGs impact the HIV epidemic and response Poverty can exacerbate vulnerability to HIV and undermine people’s capacity to mitigate its impact. How HIV affects progress towards this SDG Countries and households disproportionately affected by HIV are more vulnerable to falling into and remaining in poverty, creating a cycle of vulnerability. Illustrative examples of how the Global AIDS Strategy contributes The Strategy prioritizes social protection interventions for people living with HIV, key populations and priority populations to reduce gender and income inequalities and eliminate social exclusion, and thereby diminish the risk of HIV due to poverty

UNAIDS strives to ‘put those furthest behind first’ and leave no one behind, as set out in the 2030 Agenda, by ensuring that those populations often systematically excluded are proactively included across programmes and governance. Promoting people-centred and human rights-based approaches, UNAIDS fosters inclusive and rights-based HIV response to reach the end of AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 and advance other related SDG goals and targets.

Progress made in the HIV response is an embodiment of hope and demonstration of what can be achieved when decision-makers collaborate, follow science, tackle inequalities, protect everyone’s human rights, let communities lead, and invest what is needed as part of a global commitment to solidarity.

UNAIDS contributes to reviewing progress, sharing lessons from the HIV response and for future developments in the broader SDG agenda, such as to the UN SDG Summit 2023 – which marked the beginning of a new phase of accelerated progress towards the SDGs leading up to 2030, and the UN Summit of the Future which brought world leaders to forge a new international consensus on how we deliver a better present and safeguard the future. Building on the UN Charter and including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 2030 Agenda, the Paris Agreement, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda and many others, the Summit serves as a moment to demonstrate that international cooperation can effectively tackle current challenges as well as those that have emerged in recent years or may yet be over the horizon.

UN Reform

Drawing upon its over 25 years of coordinated multisectoral response to the AIDS pandemic, UNAIDS, as the only joint, cosponsored programme of its kind in the United Nations system, has been a pathfinder for UN reform.

The Joint Programme innovated in areas such as integrated policies, joint teams, joint programmes, and funding, unified budget and workplans, joint monitoring systems and reporting as well as inclusive governance. These have influenced some of the tools and approaches that have been put in place to guide UN Country Teams and inter-agency collaboration more generally, towards coherent support to countries and their progress towards Agenda 2030 goals. UNAIDS work is fully embedded in and supportive of the UN Resident Coordinator’s system with recent innovative approaches applied such as HIV Advisers in selected UN Resident Coordinators’ offices.

UNAIDS also contributes to dialogues on the UN80 Initiative, marking the eightieth anniversary of the United Nations Charter. The initiative which was launched in March 2025 lays out system-wide reform plans to make the UN more effective, nimble, fit for the challenges of the world. UNAIDS is fully aligned and contributes to the objectives of the UN80 initiative and holds true its key principles: enhancing operational efficiency, assessing how mandates – or key tasks – from Member States are implemented, and exploring structural reform

The UN Economic and Social Council reaffirmed the Joint Programme’s co-sponsor and governance model provides the United Nations system with a useful example of strategic coherence, reflecting national contexts and priorities, through its coordination, results-based focus, inclusive governance, and country-level impact, as set out in General Assembly resolution 75/233 on the quadrennial comprehensive policy review of operational activities for development of the United Nations system’
UN ECOSOC Resolution E/RES/2023/30 on the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, 25 July 2023

In line with UN Reform and related recommendations from the UN General Assembly resolution 72/279 on the repositioning of the UN development system Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR) and related UN Reform checklist, the Joint Programme fully promotes and contributes to advance the key principles and areas for the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030. UNAIDS also follows and is part of the UN 2.0 quintet of change initiative that encapsulates the Secretary-General's vision of a modern UN family, rejuvenated by a forward-thinking culture and empowered by cutting-edge skills for the twenty-first century, looking at innovation, data, digital, foresight and behavioural science skills and culture.

The below graph highlights some examples of how the Joint Programme or UNAIDS Secretariat operationalizes UN Reform aspects and aligned initiatives.

Highlights some examples of how this is operationalized

QCPR and Funding Compact

Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review (QCPR) outlines important expectations and mandates from Member States to enhance system-wide coherence in supporting countries in their efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review calls for a United Nations development system that is “more strategic, accountable, transparent, coherent, collaborative, efficient, effective and results-oriented”, with a central focus on leaving no one behind.

UNAIDS operating model, including its mobilization of resources, is aligned with the requirements of the Quadrennial Comprehensive Policy Review of United Nations operational activities for development. UNAIDS specifically reports on this alignment and work done through various channels.

The UN funding compact articulates concrete commitments by the United Nations and member states to strengthen how they work together to deliver on the SDGs. Through this compact, the UNSDG commits to accelerating results for countries, through more collaboration, while reporting on needs and results more clearly, consistently and transparently. In parallel, member states commit to aligning their funding with the requirements of the UNSDG entities, in terms of quantity, quality and stability.

UNAIDS reports against commitments and indicators of the Funding Compact showing high compliance. It also holds annual Funding Dialogues which are part of the commitments

UN-System-Wide Contributions and Reports

UNAIDS contributes to various important UN system-wide efforts to advance progress towards the achievements of the SDG and related reports. Additionally, UNAIDS reports against various areas – from specific programmatic areas to management reform and the broader UN 2030 agenda and SDG reporting. This includes The UN-System-Wide Action Plan 3.0 on gender equality and women’s empowerment, the Youth 2030 progress report, the Greening the Blue report, and the Sustainable Development Goals report, as well as other system-wide surveys, such as the UN Disability and Inclusion Strategy.

2030 Agenda and UN Reform

2030 Agenda and UN Reform

Update Reports on Joint Programme and QCPR

Other Resources