Tomorrow is Zero Discrimination Day!

Tomorrow is Zero Discrimination Day (1 March), where we celebrate the right of everyone to live a full and productive life, and live it with dignity.

It highlights how people can become informed about and promote inclusion, compassion, peace, and a movement for change.

Zero Discrimination Day is helping to create a global movement of solidarity to end all forms of discrimination.

We stand together

This year the theme is "We stand together".

UNAIDS is leading the global effort to end AIDs as a public health threat by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Communities are essential to the sustainability of the HIV response and the broader global health efforts, and they remain steadfast committed to their mission: ensuring that all people living with and affected by HIV are treated with dignity and respect.

However, for more than 40 years, communities have faced adversity, stigma, discrimination, criminalisation, funding cuts, and political backlash, despite their primary role ensuring that health services reach all in need, including the most vulnerable populations.

For this reason, on this year's Zero Discrimination Day, UNAIDS calls on countries, donors and partners to fulfill their commitments to support communities as they work to build sustainable HIV responses by ensuring:

• community-led organisations can deliver life-saving services and advocate without discrimination or harassment;
• community-led organisations can legally be registered in the country they are working in and can receive sustainable funding;
• communities are supported in providing health services to vulnerable and marginalised groups;
• communities are supported and funded in work to monitor respect for human rights, including ending criminalisation of key populations, stigma and discrimination, and gender inequalities;
• government health services include community representatives within their structures as partners in the development, implementation and monitoring of health programmes, to ensure they are accessible and acceptable to people living with HIV and key populations.

Communities of people living with, at risk of, or affected by HIV are on the frontlines of progress in the HIV response. Communities both provide and connect people with person-centered health services, build trust, innovate, monitor implementation of policies and services, and hold providers accountable for human rights violations.

There is clear evidence of community-led impact on sustainability of the HIV response. Nonetheless, community-led responses are too often unrecognised, under-resourced and in some places even under attack.

Crackdowns on civil society and the human rights of marginalised communities are obstructing communities from providing HIV prevention and treatment services.

Underfunding of community-led initiatives is leaving them struggling to continue operating and holding them back from expansion. If these obstacles are removed, community-led organisations can add even greater impetus to end AIDS. To meet 2030 HIV targets, sustained investment in community-led responses is crucial.

The current crisis caused by the shift in US funding has resulted in deep anxiety and pain for many as the future of life-saving HIV medicines, services and programmes, including community-led prevention, treatment, care and support, is under threat.

As we focus on the sustainability of the AIDS response now and into the future, this moment demands that we reaffirm our commitment to community autonomy, justice, dignity and health equity.

How to take part in Zero Discrimination Day

There are many ways to get involved in the day, including:

• ensuring your equality, diversity and inclusion policy is up-to-date, fair, respectful and supportive to all;
• celebrate and encourage people to get involved with awareness days to commemorate important topics and dates that may affect the people in your workplace;
• be mindful of your equality, diversity and inclusion policy during the interview process;
• be clear and honest about your inclusion policy in your training sessions and express your firm expectations for zero discrimination;
• take every report of discrimination seriously.