On Wednesday morning of March 19, 2025, at the National AIDS Authority, Senior Minister Ieng Mouly, Chair of the National AIDS Authority, co-chaired the first Government-Donor Joint Technical Working Group on HIV/AIDS in Cambodia meeting of 2025. The meeting was organized to facilitate political, technical, and resource mobilization in response to HIV and AIDS between the Royal Government and donor towards ending AIDS as a public health threat.
The meeting has been a forum to exchange views, raise challenges, report on progress to partners, as well as set goals, provide feedback on shortcomings and make suggestions for improvement in the response to HIV and AIDS. At the same time, the meeting has been contributing to a successful implementation of the National Policy for Ending AIDS and the Sustainability of HIV Program for 2023-2028, contributing to the Pentagonal Strategy, Phase 1 of the Royal Government, led by Samdech Thipadei Hun Manet, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia. This joint working group is co-chaired by H.E. Senior Minister Ieng Mouly and Ms. Patricia Ongpin, UNAIDS Country Director for Cambodia, Laos and Malaysia. Participating in the meeting were representatives of embassy from major donor countries (France), members of the technical working group on HIV and AIDS, representatives of ministries and government institutions (Ministry of Economy and Finance, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Ministry of Planning, Phnom Penh Administration), national and international institutions and organizations (UNAIDS, CCC, KHANA, HACC, RHAC, FHI360, AHF, FoNPAM), as well as representatives of key population.
The agenda of the meeting are as follows:
- Reviewing and adoption of the agenda of the first Joint Government-Donors Technical Working Group on HIV/AIDS in Cambodia meeting of 2025.
- Reviewing and following-up on the implementation of the activities set out at the end of last year.
- Presentation and updating from key sectors: health, education, labor… on the impact of the US aid suspension order.
- Updating and discussion on the sustainability plan.
- Reviewing of the progress of the joint monitoring indicators.
- Summary and closing remarks by H.E. Senior Minister and Co-Chair.
During the opening the meeting, H.E. the Senior Minister stated that the purpose of today’s meeting is to hear about the status of international aid. Especially HIV program, where the global situation after President Donald Trump came to power has been unclear. In terms of financing, how has it changed? According to the United Nations report, Cambodia ranks 10th in the world in HIV and AIDS response. Regarding to the 95-95-95 target, from recent progress, Cambodia may achieve more than 89% of the first 95 target (currently achieved 89-98-98). At the same time, due to the national policy of strengthening ownership and ensuring sustainability, up to 2027, Cambodia will not lack of ARV drugs for PLHIV. In this regard, the Royal Government has been contributing 5 million US dollars per year to purchase ARV drugs, and around 1.84 million US dollars per year has been spending on social protection and multi-sectoral HIV response at national and sub-national levels.
According to a presentation by Asst. Prof. Ouk Vichea, Director of the National Center for AIDS, Dermatology and STDs, the funding for HIV program in Cambodia has come from the Global Fund and USAID/US CDC of the United States. In this regard, the US grant has been authorized to be used again after a period of suspension. However, the above-mentioned fund can be implemented only up to September 2025. At the same time, the Global Fund grant also indicated a budget reduction of 30% to 50% in the next round from 2027. In order to ensure sustainability in the HIV and AIDS response, the meeting raised the issues of increasing efficiency and harmonizing of the program, as well as mobilizing resources.
To call for the closing the meeting, H.E. Senior Minister thanked all participants for attending the meeting and praised them for exchanging views and expressing their willingness to coordinate on what could be done. At the same time, the Senior Minister also announced the official visit of Ms. Winnie Byanyima, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNAIDS, to Cambodia in May 2025 and the contribution from Samdech Thipadei, Prime Minister in providing fund to UNAIDS as a symbol of Cambodia’s international solidarity.
