Partnerships with civil society

Civil society speaks with many voices, represents many different perspectives, and brings a broad range of experience and skills to the health sector response to HIV/AIDS in countries around the world. Activism by people living with HIV, people from most-at-risk groups and other civil society organizations, including faith-based groups, have been key to lowering the cost of antiretroviral drugs and increasing treatment access, providing care, promoting and undertaking HIV prevention interventions, promoting and protecting human rights, and countering stigma and discrimination.

Many civil society organizations, including those working with most-at-risk populations, are providing integrated, community-based prevention and care services. In the case of most-at-risk populations this often involves members of the specific population providing community-based outreach and peer education services.

WHO partners with a range of civil society organizations engaged in HIV prevention, treatment, care and support services to end users, including:

• organizations of most-at-risk and vulnerable populations;
• organizations of people living with HIV;
• community and ethnicity-based organizations;
• faith-based organizations;
• AIDS service organizations; and
• networks of civil society organizations.

Partnerships are formed and used as effective strategies to create an enabling social, legal and regulatory environment for civil society engagement, for strengthening the health sector response, and for ensuring at the individual level that people are treated with respect and dignity when accessing health care services.