29 Apr Africa Must Act Now: Domestic Resource Mobilisation for HIV in the Face of a Funding Freeze.
ICASA 2025: A Defining Moment for Africa’s Health Response
The 23rd edition of the International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa (ICASA) will take place in Accra, Ghana, from 3–8 December 2025, under the theme:
“Africa in Action: Catalysing Integrated Sustainable Responses to end AIDS, TB & Malaria.”
ICASA, the largest HIV/AIDS conference in Africa, will convene over 10,000 delegates and 200 journalists from around the world to catalyse integrated, sustainable responses to HIV, TB, malaria and other emerging threats, while spotlighting key issues like innovation, pandemic preparedness, health system resilience and importantly, domestic resource mobilisation (DRM).
Sounding the Alarm: No Progress Without Funding
At the recent International Steering Committee meeting in Accra, Dr. David Pagwesese Parirenyatwa, President of both the Society for AIDS in Africa (SAA) and ICASA 2025, made an urgent appeal: sustainable domestic financing must be central to ICASA’s agenda. His remarks follow the recent U.S. Government freeze on global HIV/AIDS funding; an alarming signal that Africa must accelerate its own financing strategies to protect and scale its HIV response.
“If we do not think innovatively about the sustainability of our health systems and domestic financing, Africa risks returning to the dark days of the ’80s and ’90s, when people were dying of AIDS due to lack of medicine,” Dr. Parirenyatwa warned.
Integrating Domestic Financing into the Conference’s Core
To address this, Dr. Parirenyatwa has urged the Leadership, Scientific, and Community programme committees of ICASA to embed domestic financing and health system sustainability into their plenary discussions. This move could help ensure that countries are not only discussing biomedical solutions, but also confronting the political and financial commitments needed to implement them.
In Dr. Parirenyatwa’s words:
“We have the science. We have the medicine. We cannot afford to go back.”
He also called on African governments, the African Union, and the diaspora to take ownership of innovations such as the recent promising HIV Cure Trial in South Africa and ensure that accountability, transparency, and universal access to care are not just aspirational but actionable.
The 15% Abuja Declaration: A Broken Promise?
This isn’t a new conversation. At ICASA’s earlier Steering Committee in December 2024, Dr. Parirenyatwa reminded African leaders of their Abuja Declaration pledge to allocate 15% of national budgets to health. With only two countries meeting that target, he asked:
“How can we ensure our young population contributes to the continent’s development when we do not even have a basic, functional universal healthcare system?”
Why This Matters Now
The 2025 ICASA objectives perfectly align with this moment. They call for mobilising domestic resources, strengthening African innovation and ownership and empowering communities to achieve the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets.
As donor uncertainty grows, domestic investment is no longer optional- it is essential. ICASA 2025 offers a significant opportunity to go beyond rhetoric and align political commitment with budgetary action.
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