A recent study by Dutch HIV charity, Aidsfonds, has revealed that funding to fight HIV among LGBT persons was “way off track” with only 2% dedicated to programmes targeting them. The report, released on the 19th of October 2020, at the HIV 2020 conference by Aidsfonds through the Bridging the Gaps and PITCH partnerships, looks into the funding towards HIV programming for gay and bisexual men and other men who have sex with men, transgender people, sex workers and people who inject drugs in low and middle-income countries between 2016-2018, and compares this against funding for the overall HIV response.
According to the report, Gay and Bisexual men account for about one in five new HIV infections, while trans people represented about 1% of new global HIV infections in 2018, but they were only allocated 1% of the $57 billion in global donor funding to treat the virus and combat its spread between 2016 and 2018, and 0.06% of the total pool – most of which is channelled to the general population in 135 lower- and middle-income countries respectively.
“Because of stigma and discrimination, because of social attitudes that are derogatory… all of these things influence the way in which development partners designate resources,” Brian Macharia from the Gay & Lesbian Coalition of Kenya tells Openly. “We’re seeing a proportion of funding that does not comprehensively afford care to these communities,” said Macharia, who helps run programmes for LGBT+ Kenyans, including HIV prevention and treatment.
In West and Central Africa, for instance, although 17% of the new HIV infections were amongst gay and bisexual men, only 0.7% of the funding is targeted at programmes for gay and bisexual men.
“Specific targeted services and safe spaces for those groups to actually access those services are necessary,” Mirjam Krijnen, who runs Aidsfonds’ international programmes, tells Openly. “Otherwise there’s a real risk… these groups are actually not accessing the care they need.”
