Unitaid to intensify cervical cancer elimination efforts with latest funding opportunity

The deadline to submit a proposal is 9 April 2026. Join the webinar on 12 February 2026 to learn more.

Despite being preventable and curable when women have access to the right intervention at the right time, cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers among women worldwide. A persistent gap in preventive care has left women in low- and middle-income countries at highest risk; 90% of new cases and deaths occur in these countries.

Unitaid has been at the forefront of global efforts to eliminate cervical cancer, driving innovation, shaping markets, and expanding access to life‑saving tools since 2018. Our work focuses on the screening and preventive treatment of early signs of cervical cancer known as secondary prevention.

Today, we support secondary prevention programs in 26 countries, helping transform how women receive care. Through our investments, we have brought down the price of screening and treatment tools and helped introduce or expand use of thermal ablation devices in more than one-fifth of all low- and middle-income countries.  We are working alongside national governments to integrate programming into national and health financing strategies to secure sustainable, high-quality care for millions of women worldwide. These efforts are part of our ongoing commitment to advance women’s health.

With this new funding opportunity, we aim to build on these achievements and work alongside countries that are ready to accelerate elimination. The focus is on integrating proven tools and pioneering new solutions to improve access, embed cervical cancer prevention services into routine care and ensure programs endure in times of declining aid funding. Proposals should align with national priorities, promote equity and long-term impact and generate actional learnings to accelerate global cervical cancer elimination.

Innovation remains central to our mission. We are looking for affordable, high-impact solutions for low-resource settings including new technologies, digital solutions, shared laboratory models and point-of-care diagnostics, as well as cost-saving or novel approaches to expand access to HPV testing.

We strongly encourage proposals to position community and civil society organizations as strategic partners in program design and implementation and demonstrate meaningful engagement with women with lived experience from the outset.

Learn more about this latest funding opportunity here: Accelerating Cervical Cancer Elimination through Secondary Prevention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries