Project Background

AIDS has an increasingly devastating impact on developmental and economic progress in Africa that varies across different regions and countries. There is growing evidence that private sector prevention and intervention strategies contribute effectively to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS, as the disease tends to affect people who have just risen above extreme poverty, have become mobile and/or have created visible economic opportunities for themselves and their families. This increasing ‘AIDS-tax’ on socio-economic development is felt in most African countries.

Anglophone Africa

In 2003, the World Bank, UNAIDS, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and selected partners initiated a partnership to increase the engagement of the private sector in national AIDS Strategies in 15 Anglophone African countries. Building on this successful collaboration, the initiative to mobilize the private sector response to HIV/AIDS in Francophone Africa will benefit from an evidence-based methodology, which will be customized in countries where the Multi-country AIDS Program (MAP ) operates.

Francophone Africa

However, unlike Anglophone Africa, where high prevalence is itself a motivator for engaging in HIV/AIDS, low prevalence countries face particular challenges in reaching out to the private sector: (i.e. in communication, stigma, awareness, and prevention.) Thus far, the involvement of the private sector in the response to the epidemic has been somewhat slow and the potential of the private sector as a resource in the national response has not been fully exploited.

Existing HIV/AIDS programs, policies and activities in private companies are almost exclusively confined to large, multi-national corporations. Some are implementing a global corporate strategy for HIV/AIDS, mandated from headquarters, and often funded and supported by regional budgets. Large, local companies are also self-financing workplace programs, and a few are supporting programs that work with the communities in which they have operations.

For the SMME sectors, there is no current data and as such, there seems to be minimal motivation to address the issues. This is attributed to a broad range of factors, chief among them being issues of culture and communication involving topics of stigma, acceptable sexual practices, and inability of the leaders to talk about sex in a workplace environment.

Mobilizing the private sector response to HIV/AIDS in Francophone Africa will result in strengthened private sector mechanisms. The public sector can use the power of the private sector to not only reach particularly vulnerable populations, but also as a partner in developing a national response to HIV/AIDS.