Across Asia and the Pacific, progress in the HIV response has not stemmed from single breakthroughs. Instead, it has emerged from years of steady conversations, in community spaces, courtrooms, police academies, parliaments and regional forums, where people shared experiences, challenged assumptions and reimagined what access to health and justice should look like. These exchanges not only strengthened the HIV responses, but also laid the foundations for building more resilient, people-centred health systems overall across the region.

Many of these conversations trace back to a pivotal moment. In 2010, UNDP supported the Global Commission on HIV and the Law, an independent panel of experts that interrogated the relationship between legal responses, human rights and HIV. This process also involved affected communities that had been excluded from decision-making. When the Asia-Pacific Regional Dialogue followed in 2011, it created a shared table where governments, judges, police, health officials, activists and community networks spoke frankly about how laws and policies were shaping people’s lives.

Rather than remaining as dialogue outcomes, these insights fuelled real policy and programmatic shifts, strengthening legal literacy, expanding social protection, training law enforcement, improving parliamentary engagement, supporting community-led law reform efforts, increasing involvement of communities as a driver of innovation and integrating the HIV response into broader development agendas. The regional platform and cross-border connections sparked new thinking. Insights from court decisions and community advocacy in South Asia helped shape conversations in Southeast Asia on discrimination, identity and access to services. Thailand’s police-training model, first shared at regional law-and-justice exchanges, was later adapted by neighbouring countries seeking safer interactions between law enforcement and key populations. Cambodia’s experience integrating HIV-affected households into its national IDPoor system informed social protection discussions in other lower-income settings. Data on stigma and discrimination generated through UNDP-supported research in one context helped reframe policy debates in another, showing decision-makers what exclusion looked like in real people’s lives. .

However, the region is now at another turning point. External financing for HIV has declined by 60 percent just as climate shocks, digital divides and economic pressures create new stresses on health systems. At the same time, the epidemiological picture remains uneven. Nearly 80 percent of new HIV infections in Asia and the Pacific occur among people from key populations and their sexual partners. New infections among gay men and other men who have sex with men have risen by 32 percent since 2010, and young people aged 15-24 – though just 15 percent of the region’s population – account for 26 percent of all new HIV infections. These overlapping trends risk widening existing gaps in access and continuity of care, particularly for key populations.

Still, the region has a deep foundation to build on – 15 years of insights into creating stronger, more resilient health systems.  

Multi-sectoral financing that prioritizes what works

As countries move toward greater domestic financing, one lesson is clear: investments go further when supporting multi-sectoral systems, rather than siloed approaches. Sustainable financing includes investments in what communities say works, such as differentiated service delivery, prevention, legal literacy and community-led monitoring. These priorities reflect lived realities, not abstract models, and ensure that budgets are aligned with the needs of those most affected.

Partnerships that bring sectors and communities together

Effective HIV responses have always depended on collaboration: between health and justice sectors, national and local governments, parliaments and community networks, and private sector actors and community networks. This collaboration has sharpened data, expanded prevention and treatment, and grounded programmes in lived realities. Regional initiatives, such as Being LGBTI in Asia and the Pacific, the SCALE initiative and regional grants funded by the Global Fund, have shown how multisectoral partnerships have helped shape more responsive, people-centred systems. Programmes, therefore, cannot focus soley on delivering clinical services, they must also include prevention, legal literacy, community-led monitoring and digital and social protection systems –  the wider ecosystem needed to sustain access.

Enabling policy environments that reduce barriers

Legal environment assessments across the region highlight how non-stigmatizing, streamlined and inclusive policies improve access to services. Simplified administrative procedures, such as identity documents that reflect a person’s gender identity, grievance mechanisms or social protection access, help people engage with systems confidently and without fear. These enabling environments are essential for sustaining gains, supporting prevention and ensuring that services reach people most at risk of being left behind.

These lessons are not only reflections on the past—they point toward how the region can navigate the next generation of challenges. As climate shocks, emerging pathogens and digital divides reshape health systems, the HIV response offers some of the region’s most practical and transferable tools. Community-led networks have already shown how essential services can continue through floods, storms, mobility restrictions and economic pressures, grounding programmes in real-world conditions rather than ideal scenarios. Flexible approaches such as self-testing, community dispensing, peer-delivered outreach and remote counselling demonstrate how access and trust can be maintained even when systems are strained. These same principles are now reshaping climate adaptation and preparedness efforts: early-warning systems that draw on local knowledge, mobile and temporary services co-designed with the communities who use them, and resilience planning that starts with the realities of those most at risk of being left behind.

COVID-19 reinforced that emergency responses succeed when equity and inclusion are built in from the beginning, and many of the digital tools, monitoring systems and differentiated delivery models that proved essential during the pandemic grew from decades of HIV innovation.

The region’s progress did not come from one institution or one moment. It came from countries learning together, communities shaping solutions, and institutions adapting as realities changed. That spirit now guides the region into new territory. UNDP and partners will continue working alongside countries to strengthen inclusive, resilient systems that can weather climate shocks, future pandemics and shifting health needs. Fifteen years after the first regional dialogue, the core message remains unchanged: When people can participate fully and safely in shaping their health and their future, progress accelerates for everyone.