The Business Response to HIV/AIDS: Impact and lesson learned

The business response
to HIV/AIDS
Businesses are being subjected to the pressures of increasingly competitive national and
global markets through globalisation and liberalisation of economies, combined with
demands from investors and consumers for increased productivity, efficiency, innovation
and quality of products and services. In addition, pressures are mounting for businesses to be
more responsible and accountable to their wider stakeholders - workforces, suppliers,
communities, governments and the general public.
Given this scenario and the known impact that HIV/AIDS has on business and its stakeholders, there is a
clear requirement for business to respond. The challenge is clear, the response has been diverse, with a
particular emphasis in the early stages of action on addressing and safeguarding core business activities
through the protection and support of their own workforces. Increasingly, as businesses have become
aware of the significance of other stakeholders in influencing the impact of HIV/AIDS on their ability to
operate, they have begun to extend their responses to assist and collaborate in wider prevention and
education initiatives.
The motives have been both philanthropic and business focused and the scope has been local, national and
international. A well-known but useful example is Levi Strauss & Co, which in 1982 developed an employee
and community HIV/AIDS awareness initiative in San Francisco, USA. A few years later Levi Strauss & Co
undertook to include HIV/AIDS education and care as an investment focus, further extending the reach.
This culminated in 1998 in the development of an education video, in association with UNAIDS, which
has been made available to other companies and community organisations worldwide.
Actual responses will depend on numerous factors, in particular, the financial and human resource
capacities of businesses. Clearly, larger companies have been able to undertake more extensive and widerreaching actions. It is more difficult for small and medium sized firms who lack such resources, though
they are often able to be more innovative and experimental. The changing structure of the global systems
of production and trade towards specialisation, contracting and subcontracting has produced increasingly
closer links between large and small businesses. This has led to a greater need and opportunity for
collaboration between the two sectors in addressing HIV/AIDS.
Responses to HIV/AIDS by business have shown that their actions and influence can extend into a
number of broad areas, as follows:
2. B u s iness pa rt n ers
3. Com m unities..............
4. Ad vo cacy a nd lea de r shi p....

THE BUSINESS RESPONSE TO HIV/AIDS: Impact and lessons learned

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