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

Shop has provided direct technical assistance to enable their suppliers to develop and establish
independent HIV/AIDS programmes. An important factor in these relationships is that in the longterm this capacity-building approach requires minimal resource demands as the supplier SMEs have
developed innovative, context-specific and autonomous HIV/AIDS programmes.
b. Collective cooperation between large enterprise and small and medium sized
enterprise sectors
Business coalitions on HIV/AIDS exist in a number of countries and at a global level (Profile 16) but
on the whole do not explicitly support SMEs, concentrating on LEs through membership and
associated activities. However, while there is limited experience of collective action with regards to
HIV/AIDS, there is a considerable history of business linkages in the promotion of high-quality SME
business practices. Studies have shown that linkage programmes, transferring technical, operational
and managerial skills from LEs to SMEs, have resulted in over 17 percent increases in productivity1.
With regards to HIV/AIDS, LEs can cooperate to provide leadership, training, materials, advice and
finance where appropriate. The South African Business Council on HIV/AIDS, a coalition of around
20 companies, is currently developing a workplace resource centre to act as a central information and
advisory centre for all businesses, with an acknowledgment of the important role this will play for
SMEs' responses (see Profile 16).
The benefits of cooperating on a non-competitive issue such as HIV/AIDS are numerous. Beyond the
now obvious economic and social benefits of the reduced impact of HIV/AIDS, the pooling of
limited resources reduces intervention costs and LEs demonstrate leadership and enhance their
reputations. In addition, a principal beneficial feature of such linkages is that they can serve as a
highly effective mechanism for the diffusion of information on business responses to HIV/AIDS,
given the shared market-orientated knowledge and experience, and provide a mechanism for
combining advocacy efforts. This creates the environment in which context-specific and appropriate
programmes and policies can be devised and implemented in a mutually advantageous manner,
without raising costs significantly for any one LE.
Moreover, given that a crucial factor in the success of private sector HIV/AIDS programmes is a
commitment by top management, close cooperation and leadership from LEs increases the likelihood
of SME success. This can be complemented by governmental and non-governmental technical
assistance on HIV/AIDS programmes and policies. In addition, small business associations and
chambers of commerce can act as intermediaries, playing an important role in brokering links
between LEs and SMEs around HIV/AIDS interventions.
B. Educating customers
The life-blood of business is its customers. HIV/AIDS threatens not only present consumer markets
but also future markets if education and prevention campaigns are not extended to a wider audience.
Many of the major companies around the world are the foremost communicators, demand creators
and the distributors of goods and services. It is precisely these skills that are needed to combat the
spread of HIV/AIDS.
Some of the world's greatest mass-marketing companies not only have extraordinary communications
capacities that can help communicate the message about HIV/AIDS through social marketing, but
they also command extremely effective distribution systems. Coca-Cola can get its products into small
villages that public health officials find extraordinarily difficult to service. These and other such
channels could be used for condom distribution and education campaigns in the developing world.
However, there are a number of consumer goods companies that have used their distribution network

to promote public health messages. However, brand-name companies are often reluctant to associate
themselves in a high-profile way with HIV/AIDS prevention, due to mis-education over modes of

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