The President of Mozambique, Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, chaired an extraordinary board meeting of the National AIDS Council on World AIDS Day in Maputo, Mozambique. The meeting brought together government representatives and community and religious leaders from all provinces of the country and national and international stakeholders to reinforce the country’s commitment towards ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

In his opening speech, Mr Nyusi underlined that everyone, including community members, government representatives and religious leaders, has a role to play in the response to HIV and called on everyone to join forces to overcome the cultural barriers that are preventing people living with HIV and key populations accessing the services they need. He also stressed the importance of protecting adolescent girls and young women and emphasized that an innovative communication strategy will be required to bring about social change.

UNAIDS Deputy Executive Director Luiz Loures commended the country’s leadership for the progress made in the past 10 years, with almost 1 million people accessing antiretroviral therapy. He also stressed the importance of providing space and resources to communities, as they are key to advancing the response to HIV and to reaching populations that otherwise would be left behind. He also assured Mr Nyusi that UNAIDS will strongly support Mozambique’s efforts to end the AIDS epidemic.

Carlos Agostinho do Rosário, Prime Minister of Mozambique and Chair of the National AIDS Council board, chaired the open plenary discussion with community leaders. Nazira Abdula, Minister of Health of Mozambique, other cabinet ministers, Iolanda Cintura, Governor of Maputo City, and David Simango, Mayor of Maputo City, were among other high-level officials of the country present at the meeting.

The participants at the meeting agreed that scaling up HIV prevention programmes, putting communities at the centre of the response, addressing stigma and discrimination and focusing on achieving the 90–90–90 targets are urgently needed to step up the pace of the response to AIDS in the country.