On 27 April 2025, Anna Mia Ekström appeared on SVT’s Agenda to warn of the devastating impact of U.S. aid cuts and Sweden’s shifting aid policy, calling the global HIV response “in crisis” and urging the government to reconsider reductions to health and development research funding. She stressed that without urgent action, we risk losing decades of progress in the fight against AIDS.
Photo: David Watkis/Unsplash
On 27 April 2025, Anna Mia Ekström, member of the steering and executive committees of SweDev and professor of global infectious disease epidemiology at Karolinska Institutet, took part in Agenda on SVT alongside Benjamin Dousa, Minister for International Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade, to discuss the severe consequences of recent U.S. aid cuts and Sweden’s changing aid policy.
Anna Mia began by stressing that the global HIV response is in crisis, warning that we risk being thrown 25 years backward in the fight against AIDS. She described the urgency of the situation as “extreme,” citing that over 40,000 adults and nearly 5,000 children have died from AIDS in just three months, with hundreds of thousands newly infected—mainly young women and girls.
She described the U.S. withdrawal from international cooperation as deeply destabilizing: health workers were suddenly stopped from doing their jobs, communication with international agencies was cut, and critical data systems were dismantled. With the World Health Organisation (WHO) cutting its own operations, she argued, this is the worst possible time for countries like Sweden to reduce health aid.
Her message to the Swedish government was clear: reconsider the cuts, especially to health and to development research. “If we want to carry out the reform agenda, where aid is based on evidence and effectiveness, then I also think the government needs to reconsider cutting funding for development research. Sweden needs to evaluate which parts of aid are most effective. We need to invest in what actually works.”
While Benjamin Dousa acknowledged the seriousness of the situation, he defended the aid budget cuts, citing domestic priorities, but emphasized that Sweden would continue to prioritize life-saving efforts, support for Ukraine, and women’s rights.