AIDS2024 Donor Roundtable: Our Key Takeaways

Written by Sally Houghton, Director of Fundraising

Thank you to everyone who actively participated in our donor advocacy workshop, “Investing in Minds Transforms Lives: A Call for Increased Investment in Mental Health for HIV/AIDS and TB,” in partnership with the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) and the Global Fund.

I’d especially like to thank Kim Green from PATH, for facilitating a highly engaging workshop and our panellists Liz Bayer, from Strong Minds, Nguyen Minh Trang, Supporting Community Development Initiatives, Paul Mavesere Ndhlovu, Zvandri and Lindsay Hayden from EJAF.

Our key takeaways:

Communities and people should be at the heart of advocacy. We need a collective voice to advocate for integrating mental health into our programmes. Personal narratives are powerful—we must share inspiring stories and experiences of people living with HIV/TB and mental health conditions and empower them to tell their own stories.

Messaging and language matter: Participants agreed that deficit-based language must be minimised, and the focus should shift to language that empowers and respects individuals.

Data and impact measurement remain a big gap: We have data showing the return on the investment of funding mental health interventions in HIV and TB care, and we must communicate this to donors until they start repeating it.

Some systems and tools are in place, and we need to tap them. We must harness existing systems, such as peer counselling, to make mental health care more accessible. However, we must still simplify and contextualise others to improve service delivery.

Integration is the way forward: We must continuously look for sustainable opportunities to integrate mental health components into services and broader health systems and learn from different communities where specific models work at scale.

We’re excited to continue this conversation beyond AIDS 2024 and work toward increased investment in mental health support for HIV and TB affected communities!

Let’s keep in touch; visit our Mental Health Networking Zone at the Global Village, A1 Zone, HT03 booth or contact the team at hello@unitedgmh.org