What happens when we invest in children affected by HIV?

What happens when we invest in children affected by HIV? The power of partnership and the cost of losing it

We see mothers supported to protect their babies from HIV. Young people helping their peers access treatment and support. Communities and health services working together to reach children who might otherwise be left behind. Most importantly, we see children and young people given a better chance to thrive.

But at a time when HIV and global health funding is under increasing pressure, these gains cannot be taken for granted. Cuts to funding risk weakening the community organisations, peer-support programmes and services that children and families rely on. The question is not only what we can achieve through investment, but what we stand to lose without it?

As part of the Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS’ storytelling campaign on the importance of sustainable financing, we are exploring this through the work of one of our valued members, ViiV Healthcare, and its Positive Action programme.

Positive Action provides powerful examples of what sustained investment and partnership can achieve. Across its paediatric programmes, it has supported approaches that put communities, families and young people at the heart of the HIV response.

In Uganda, mothers living with HIV have been supported to become community mentors, using their own experiences to support other women through pregnancy and help protect their babies from HIV.

Young people are also playing a vital role. Peer-support approaches enable adolescents and young adults living with HIV to help others navigate treatment, testing and psychosocial support — offering understanding and trust that health services alone cannot always provide.

These examples show that investment is about more than funding individual programmes. It is about building relationships, strengthening communities and creating services that work better for children and young people.

Yet children continue to face significant inequalities in the HIV response. According to UNICEF, only 58% of children living with HIV have access to treatment, compared with 77% of adults. Children accounted for 12% of AIDS-related deaths in 2023, despite representing around 3% of people living with HIV.1

There is still much to do.

The Coalition has seen the difference sustained investment and collaboration can make, including through our work with ViiV Healthcare’s Positive Action programme to support better outcomes for children and adolescents affected by HIV. Partnership can deliver new ideas, stronger organisations, better evidence and, ultimately, better support for children and families.

But once relationships, expertise and community infrastructure are lost, they cannot simply be switched back on when funding returns. For a child or young person, a funding cut can mean losing access to a trusted peer supporter, struggling to stay connected to treatment, or missing out on vital social and emotional support.

That is why sustainable financing matters. We know what can happen when governments, donors, communities, health services and partners work together. We have seen the results. The question now is whether we will protect that progress or allow funding cuts to undo it. Children and young people affected by HIV cannot afford to be left behind. If we are serious about ending AIDS, we must continue to invest in the people, partnerships and services that make progress possible.

Because protecting progress means protecting their futures. Read the ViiV Healthcare paediatric case studies here.

1.https://data.unicef.org/topic/hivaids/global-regional-trends