Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>HIV remains one of the most challenging topics for global public health. Despite the remarkable advances in the development of a biomedical control and prevention toolbox, these tools are only effective if inserted into a framework of orchestrated and coherent urban, national, and international policies. Cooperation between different sectors and countries is a persistent challenge, as is the design of evidence-based policies. This chapter investigates how political leadership is a pivotal tool for the active engagement of policy makers with evidence-based policies, and the positive impacts such an involvement unleashes. The chapter draws on examples from the UNITE Parliamentarians Network for Global Health (UNITE), an organization that actively seeks to move political advocacy and bring evidence closer to policy-making around key policy areas and priorities, among which include bringing infectious diseases to an end by 2030. The central themes from these examples—such as universal health coverage (UHC), harm reduction strategies, and human rights of the people deprived of their liberty—demonstrate the impact that coherent actions can have on preventing and controlling HIV.</jats:p>