Enhancing locally led response by breaking down siloes between the HIV and humanitarian sectors

The world is facing increasing and extreme crises, such as conflict and climate-driven disasters, which are cutting people off from health services and putting decades of progress on HIV at risk. These crises put people at risk of HIV and increase the negative impacts and outcomes for people living with HIV. Crises can exacerbate existing stigma against LGBTQ+ people and the most marginalised communities, including people who use drugs, trans people and sex workers, and they are often the first to lose access to health and humanitarian support.

Community-led organisations know how to reach them. Frontline AIDS’ partners have pivoted swiftly to operate in conflict settings: Alliance for Public Health (APH), Ukraine and Society for Inclusion and Development in Communities and Care for All (SIDC), Lebanon continue to provide services to the most marginalised groups.  In addition to providing HIV services and support, they now provide sexual and reproductive health, mental health, harm reduction, primary health care services and telehealth services. Our partners have been developing and leading ‘localisation’ approaches well before it became a cornerstone principle of humanitarian response.

The humanitarian sector is struggling to shift power, funding and decision making to locally-led organisations, while the HIV movement needs help to adapt to operating in heavily disrupted, crisis-affected settings.  The 2026 Political Declaration on AIDS commits countries to integrating HIV into humanitarian response frameworks. This workshop provides an important opportunity for the two sectors to break down siloes and work together, providing an opportunity to learn from civil society-led organisations on how to make humanitarian responses more inclusive and effective, while integrating HIV responses.

In this workshop, Frontline AIDS, APH, SIDC and Christian Aid will share how they are innovating to provide humanitarian support, HIV and other healthcare services in conflict zones, from the use of mobile clinics to AI-powered digital health assistants.  

Audience members are encouraged to participate and bring their questions during the Q&A session.