MPG recognizes that ending AIDS requires more than ensuring access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support services. Persistent stigma, discrimination, misinformation, and social exclusion continue to influence health-seeking behavior, service uptake, treatment continuity, and the overall wellbeing of people living with HIV and other communities affected by HIV.

Addressing these barriers requires engagement beyond the health sector. It requires sustained collaboration with communities, including faith-based institutions and interfaith leadership structures, which remain highly influential in shaping social norms, trust, and inclusion at community level.

In Myanmar, faith leaders play a critical role in guiding community values, reducing fear and misinformation, and fostering acceptance. Recognizing this strategic importance, MPG has worked in partnership with Puu Paung Swann Saung Myanmar (PPSSM)—one of Myanmar’s pioneering interfaith HIV networks—to strengthen faith-based engagement on HIV awareness, stigma reduction, and human rights.

Interfaith Leadership as a Community Systems Strengthening Approach

PPSSM has long contributed to Myanmar’s HIV response by engaging leaders from diverse faith traditions to promote compassion, dignity, and non-discrimination for people living with HIV. Through sustained engagement with religious institutions and community structures, PPSSM has helped demonstrate that faith-based leadership can be a powerful driver of social inclusion and stigma reduction when supported with accurate knowledge and rights-based approaches.

This work is consistent with global evidence and guidance from UNAIDS and the Global Fund, which recognize that stigma and discrimination are structural barriers requiring community-led and multisectoral responses, including engagement of faith actors as part of broader community systems strengthening approaches.

MPG–PPSSM Collaboration on Stigma Reduction and Community Engagement

Building on this foundation, MPG partnered with PPSSM during 2025–2026 to implement HIV knowledge strengthening and stigma and discrimination reduction activities in multiple locations across Myanmar.

The collaboration focused on:

• improving accurate understanding of HIV transmission and treatment;
• addressing misinformation and harmful myths;
• strengthening rights-based perspectives on HIV and inclusion;
• promoting non-discriminatory attitudes toward people living with HIV;
• supporting faith leaders to respond constructively to stigma in their communities; and
• strengthening local leadership for social cohesion and inclusion.

These activities contributed to building trust between faith institutions, communities, and people living with HIV, and reinforced the role of religious leaders as community influencers in reducing stigma and improving access to health services.

During 2025, the collaboration supported the engagement and capacity strengthening of over four hundred faith leaders across participating locations, enhancing their ability to address HIV-related stigma and promote inclusive community environments.

Ensuring Continuity of Community-Led Interventions

In contexts where funding gaps and implementation disruptions occur, continuity of community-led interventions is critical to sustaining trust, momentum, and programme effectiveness.

During 2026, when funding constraints threatened continuity of planned activities, MPG provided temporary bridging support to PPSSM to ensure that ongoing community engagement activities could continue without interruption. This helped preserve established community relationships and maintained continuity in stigma reduction efforts at local level.

This reflects MPG’s broader commitment to protecting essential community systems interventions that address structural barriers affecting HIV outcomes, particularly those that are often underfunded but central to long-term epidemic control.

Strategic Importance for HIV Outcomes and Health Systems

Stigma and discrimination remain among the most persistent barriers to HIV service uptake, treatment adherence, and social inclusion. Fear of judgement, exclusion, and negative social consequences continues to discourage individuals from accessing HIV testing, initiating treatment early, disclosing status, or engaging in community support systems.

Faith-based engagement is therefore not a peripheral activity but a strategic component of community systems strengthening and demand creation for HIV services.

When faith leaders are equipped with accurate knowledge and supported with rights-based approaches, they can contribute to:

• reducing misinformation and harmful beliefs;
• improving acceptance of people living with HIV;
• strengthening community trust in health services;
• encouraging earlier testing and treatment uptake;
• supporting retention in care; and
• reinforcing non-discrimination in community life.

Alignment with Global and National HIV Frameworks

The collaboration between MPG and PPSSM is aligned with internationally recognized HIV frameworks, including:

• UNAIDS Global AIDS Strategy (2021–2026), which emphasizes removing societal and legal barriers, including stigma and discrimination, as essential to ending AIDS;
• Global Fund Community, Rights and Gender (CRG) Framework, which prioritizes community-led responses to human rights-related barriers;
• Community Systems Strengthening approaches that recognize the role of community actors, including faith-based organizations, in improving service uptake and accountability;
• Myanmar National Strategic Plan on HIV and AIDS, which prioritizes human rights, stigma reduction, and community engagement as core pillars of the national response.

Looking Forward

MPG remains committed to mainstreaming stigma and discrimination reduction across all areas of its work, including community-led monitoring, community feedback mechanisms, human rights programming, and health systems strengthening.

The partnership with PPSSM reflects a broader strategic approach: engaging influential community systems, including faith institutions, as active partners in HIV response rather than external stakeholders.

Through continued collaboration with interfaith networks, community-led organizations, government institutions, and development partners, MPG will continue to strengthen inclusive community environments where all individuals—regardless of HIV status—can access services, participate fully in society, and live with dignity, safety, and respect.