UNAIDS Calls on Governments to Strengthen HIV-sensitive Social Protection Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic

UNAIDS calls on governments to live up to their 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development commitment to leave no one behind by strengthening social protection systems, including the set of minimum standards known as “floors”, in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and by enhancing the responsiveness of social protection systems to people’s basic and changing needs and vulnerabilities—in particular for people living with, at risk of and affected by HIV, including key populations and young people, women and girls, people living with disabilities, refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and populations in a state of food insecurity or malnourishment and in humanitarian settings. These groups of people are among the high-risk populations for COVID-19 and are especially vulnerable to economic, spatial and social inequalities and disruptions in the provision of, and effective access to, basic services and social assistance.