Avac Event

Influencing the New USG Global Health MoUs and PEPFAR Strategy

We invite you to an urgent and critical webinar focused on the new Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) governing US Government (USG) global health investments, including PEPFAR, under the “America First Strategy.” These MoUs are currently under rapid discussion with African Governments.

Organized by COMPASS in collaboration with EANNASO and Data ETC, this webinar is designed to equip African Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) with the necessary analysis and advocacy strategies.

The goal is to enable CSOs to proactively influence the priorities for the upcoming five years of USG health investments, specifically concerning HIV, primary prevention, and the crucial role of community-led monitoring and delivery.

Featured Experts

  • Emily Bass: The New MoU and its implications. 
  • Brian Honnermann (amfAR): The New MoU and its implications.
  • Nelson Otuoma (NEPHAK-Kenya): Direct experience from national MoU participation.
  • Munyaradzi Chimwara (ACT-Zimbabwe): Community safeguards for inclusion and accountability.

Avac Event

Innovative HIV Prevention and Treatment Keynote and Panel Discussion

An in-depth discussion on lenacapavir, this session will examine its potential to transform HIV prevention on a global scale, looking at the latest clinical evidence, regulatory pathways, and the access barriers that may shape its rollout, especially in low-resource settings. The program will feature a special keynote address followed by a panel discussion with leading experts in HIV prevention and global health, exploring how innovation, policy, and equity intersect in the next frontier of HIV response.

Keynote Session

  • Moupali Das, MD, MPH, Gilead Sciences
  • Keynote Moderator: Dr. Charles B. Holmes, Director, Georgetown University Center for Innovation in Global Health; Distinguished Scholar and Program Director·O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center

Panel Discussion

  • Moderator: Martha Sichone Cameron, PhD Candidate, Global Infectious Disease, Georgetown University
  • Micheal Ighodaro, Executive Director, Global Black Gay Men Connect (GBGMC)
  • Rupa Patel, MD, MPH, Clinical Researcher, Whitman Walker Institute
  • Mitchell Warren, Executive Director, AVAC
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Avac Event

Beyond Borders

Join ISSTDR, IUSTI, the STI & HIV 2025 World Congress, and AVAC for a special webinar spotlighting speakers who were not about to join the congress due to financial and political barriers. Presenters will share their findings, debate their results, and discuss the work still ahead for the STI field. Don’t miss this opportunity to engage directly with cutting-edge research and the people driving it forward.

Avac Event

The Lancet’s Innovations in Sexual & Reproductive Health

Professor Kenneth Mayer (Fenway Health/Harvard Medical School/Harvard University Center for AIDS Research) and Prof. Linda-Gail Bekker (Desmond Tutu Health Foundation/University of Cape Town) made remarks coinciding with the US launch of The Lancet’s series on sexual and reproductive health.

This series, supported by The Gates Foundation, brings together global experts to highlight innovations, challenges, and opportunities for improving sexual and reproductive health worldwide.

View The Lancet series here. Learn more about the event on the Fenway Health website.

Event Highlights

Avac Event

From Courtrooms to Communities: Funding Advocacy to Protect HIV Responses

Please note: registration is limited to representatives of funding and philanthropy serving organizations.

Advocacy is one of the most underfunded areas of HIV philanthropy—yet essential to defending rights and sustaining progress.

Join Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA) on Wednesday, November 12, 2025, from 10:00–11:30 AM EST for From Courtrooms to Communities: Funding Advocacy to Protect HIV Responses.

Moderator

  • Marvell L. Terry II, Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA) 

Featured Speakers

  • S. Mandisa Moore O’Neal, Center for HIV Law & Policy (CHLP)
  • Mitchell Warren, AVAC 
  • Edwin J. Bernard, HIV Justice Network

Together, they will explore how shifting legal and policy environments are shaping HIV responses, why bold and intersectional advocacy strategies matter, and where philanthropy can make catalytic investments to protect and advance progress.

Avac Event

We Declare—Turning “The People’s Declaration” Demands into Actions and Accountability on HIV

The People’s Declaration—currently with over 500 signatories, charts out a number of community priorities and demands—as noted below. Please join The Choice Agenda, The Legacy Project, and a fabulous global panel to discuss moving those demands into actions and accountability.

To date, the discourse surrounding these actions has focused largely on the devastation to grants, dollars, and institutions. Here, we center people instead—the communities who stand to suffer the harshest consequences of these actions. Here, we remind the world that the first letter in HIV stands for human.

  • We demand substantive, meaningful inclusion of community in every aspect of HIV research, from protocol development to study implementation to the dissemination of clinical trial results.
  • We demand diversity, equity, and inclusion amongst the scientific teams conducting HIV research.
  • We demand diversity, equity, and inclusion across all community stakeholder engagement activities.
  • We demand diversity, equity, and inclusion in the recruitment of clinical trial participants who accurately reflect the epidemic.

Click to read the full declaration and sign on if you haven’t already!

Moderator

  • Brian Minalga, Office of HIV/AIDS Network Coordination (HANC)

Panelists

  • Adrian Williams, AW DEI Consulting Inc
  • Asia Russell, Health GAP
  • JD Davids, JD Strategies, Patient Led Research Collaborative
  • Luciana Kamel, HIV Community Advocate, Brazil
  • Moses Supercharger, Joint Adherent Brothers and Sisters Against AIDS, Uganda
  • Rebecca Denison, Advocate, USA

Avac Event

Do Not Check That Box – Impacts From the Assault on Transgender Communities and DEI + Strategies to Sustain and Rebuild

Our panelists had an unflinchingly honest—and interactive—conversation assessing the impacts of the ongoing assault on transgender communities, gender affirming health care, data collection, and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion writ large. Strategies to restore trust, sustain programming, and rebuild from the ashes were explored.

Panelists:

  • Dr. Joseph Cherabie
    Washington University St. Louis
  • Dr. Melanie Thompson
    AIDS Research Consortium of Atlanta
  • Dr. Asa Radix
    New York City
  • Leigh-Ann van der Merwe
    Social, Health & Empowerment Feminist Collective, South Africa

Recording / Resources / Transcript

Avac Event

Urgent PEPFAR Bridge Planning Webinar

PEPFAR launched its “Bridge Planning” process on September 5, with country plans due September 25 and approval by September 30. This fast timeline risks excluding community and civil society voices, despite their critical role in shaping effective, sustainable HIV responses. Reports indicate limited to no community participation in many African partner countries, undermining rights-based, participatory planning.

Eannaso is hosting this emergency webinar to convene stakeholders to strategize collective advocacy for meaningful civil society engagement in this urgent process.

Avac Event

Will Lenacapavir be a Lever or a Let-Down? Lessons, Resources and Considerations for Implementation in the United States

Approved in July, lenacapavir for PrEP has tremendous potential to increase access and engagement in the United States, reaching individuals who have been unable to embrace PrEP in its previous formulations. The Choice Agenda and the HIV BLUPrInt team for a deep dive into rolling out lenacapavir (Yeztugo) in the US. Speakers summarized lessons, previewed existing resources, and called for expanded research and practice models that use lenacapavir as a lever to increase HIV prevention access, empowerment, and reach.

Recording / Slides / Resources

Avac Event

24 Hours to Save AIDS Research

Over the past four decades, HIV research has saved tens of millions of lives through discoveries in HIV treatment and prevention, with the US federal government playing a foundational role in that success. Unprecedented assaults on science and research and the systematic dismantling of federal institutions over the past months risk those accomplishments. These unparalleled budget cuts and project terminations will set the HIV/AIDS response back years, if not decades.

It’s not too late to change that! The commitment and actions of the scientific and advocacy community have been successful in reversing some of these funding decisions and we need to keep up the pressure.

Join us on September 16 starting at 11:00 ET as scientists, researchers, and advocates from around the world describe what has been achieved through decades of federal investments and what we stand to lose. Don’t miss the opportunity to come together in community as we share insights, answer questions, and inspire action.