Business’ role in exercising leadership, promoting equity, embracing accountability, and developing partnerships

Abstract

The World Economic Forum, the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, and the South African Business Coalition on HIVand AIDS have placed the role of business in HIV/AIDS prevention and care high on their agendas. These groups have secured endorsement from leading companies for specific policies related to HIV/AIDS in the workplace. Business involvement in HIV/AIDS activities can occur at several levels. Industries and businesses can adopt policies and recommendations regarding HIV/AIDS in the workplace. They can spearhead treatment initiatives and routinely offer prevention and diagnostic services, such as voluntary counselling and testing, in the workplace and in communities. They can examine policy, economic, and structural barriers and facilitators to prevention and care, and engage in structural changes to produce better health outcomes. They can engage as leaders in advocating for similar businesses or their suppliers to adopt workplace policies and programmes. They can also engage in philanthropy that might stimulate and support government programmes, provide pilot grants to initiate programmes and research, build facilities and structures, or promote programmes that governments or other funders might avoid. In an effort to advance the discussion and implementation of business action on HIV/AIDS, the UCLA Program in Global Health at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA, hosted a think tank in Durban, South Africa, from 21 to 23 June 2006. The meeting brought together businesses, civil society organizations and academic researchers from southern Africa, the United States, and Europe. Its goals were: To review and consider available evidence on the epidemiology and impact of HIV/AIDS in the workplace; To establish how businesses have responded to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and document what is known about the efficacy of workplace prevention and care programmes; To assess the wider role of the private sector in advancing the key goals of accountability, equity and leadership in the fight against the virus; To determine future research needs and how those needs can be met; To make evidence-based programmatic and policy recommendations to maximize the contributions that the business sector can make towards HIV/AIDS prevention and care in South Africa.