HIV/AIDS Initiative Newsletter: September 2004. The good news about HIV/AIDS in Africa is that the tide can be turned. The question is whether proven programs will be scaled up to necessary levels. This will be expensive, but the cost of delay will be higher.
Parts of sub-Saharan Africa have already lost the economic ground gained over recent decades. Reports prepared for the 15th international conference on HIV/AIDS in July suggest that neither governments nor the private sector have recognized the magnitude of the economic and social threat. Without that recognition and aggressive action in response-there is much worse to come.
New terms, such as "de-schooling" and "child-headed households," hint at the underlying systemic effects of HIV. Life expectancies in southern Africa have plummeted by decades. Over 40% of Malawi's educational personnel will be lost by 2005. The cost of replacing teachers in Swaziland will soon exceed the national budget. As many as half the nurses in the city of Lusaka will die within the next four years. Women everywhere are especially vulnerable, putting added strains on families. Stephen Lewis, the UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, points out that 75% of HIV-positive Africans between the ages of 15 and 24 are women and girls.
Every workplace will feel the impact. Despite predictions for rapid rises in prevalence rates in India, China and Russia over the next ten years, six out of ten workers unable to hold jobs will be African. Companies of all sizes will see rising costs, declining productivity and falling revenues.
Seven African countries already have more than a million HIV-positive workers. Twelve million children have lost parents, leaving them orphaned and destitute. Nearly 2.5 million working-age men and women in sub-Saharan Africa will die of AIDS next year. By then, over 25% of working-age people in the region will be HIV positive. Prevention is equally urgent. Without effective prevention, says Dr. Helene Gayle of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, "we will continue to fall further and further behind, with more and more people getting infected- and be totally inadequate in our ability to provide treatment for the larger numbers of people who will need antiretroviral therapy."
This all gives added urgency to corporate efforts to encourage prevention as well as to develop treatment programs. A Gates Foundation grant is enabling CCA to help its members develop workplace programs. AllAfrica Global Media, a CCA member, is assisting that effort by compiling, indexing and disseminating CCA's information.
The collaboration is part of an initiative called HealthAfrica, which will use the reach and reputation of AllAfrica to forge alliances, aggregate and display data and support efforts to fight HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases in Africa. Participants include corporations, government agencies, faith-based communities, international organizations and civil society groups.
Building upon the foundation of the website allafrica.com, which posts 800-1000 articles daily, hosts a searchable archive approaching one million documents, and serves over 12 million monthly page views to a global audience, HealthAfrica will fill a gap for easy-to-find information that is both topical and current. The initiative will:
- produce country barometers to track progress
- provide current news
- produce and distribute locally appropriate information
- inform and involve policy makers
- engage communities, particularly high-risk youth and women, and
- work with media to increase and improve coverage.
The CCA/AllAfrica partnership will also develop an online toolkit to help companies learn about best practices, design their own workplace programs and communicate with each other. It is an ambitious effort, but the stakes are high-for Africa and for the companies that do business there.
Tamela Hultman is Chief Strategy and Content Officer for All Africa Global Media. For additional information contact thultman@allafrica.com.
