HIV 2020: Online

An alliance of global key population-led networks, networks of people living with HIV, treatment activists, and our supporters, has formed to organize an alternative international community-led online event. Titled, HIV2020: Community Reclaiming the Global Response, the event is scheduled to take place on Zoom from July through October of 2020.

The HIV2020 alliance has decided to organize the community-led event to provide an alternative for individuals who cannot or will participate in the AIDS2020 virtual conference. Its goal is to offer new opportunities to reaffirm the leading role communities play in the global HIV response.

Against the recommendations of community advocates worldwide, including the national networks of people living with HIV in the US, the International AIDS Society (IAS) chose the US as the site for its International AIDS Conference in 2020. Their decision created a dilemma for many in the global HIV movement and reveals a willingness by mainstream HIV actors to tolerate the discrimination of people from Middle Eastern, African, Caribbean and Latin American countries, people who use drugs, sex workers, transgender people in US immigration and travel policies.

The decision also resurfaced questions about the importance and community-relevance of large, multi-million-dollar conferences in the face of shrinking investment in the global HIV response. The costs of medicines and other barriers to HIV prevention, care, and treatment services like stigma, discrimination, violence, and criminalization, continue to plague the HIV response worldwide.

Check out the programme calednar and register for the event.