All sectors of society, including business, civil society and government need to get involved and work together if South Africa is to deal with the scourge of the HIV/Aids pandemic, says James Gregory, Managing Director, Prime Cure Wellness.

“A multi-sectoral approach and coordinated response is required to tackle the pandemic and in this regard business has a critical role to play in growing a culture of giving, infused with an ethos of social justice,” suggests Gregory.

Gregory points out that while many South Africans have become ‘HIV-weary’ in recent times and pushed the disease to the back of their minds, it continues to have a devastating affect on society and economy. An estimated six million South Africans are still expected to die from Aids-related diseases over the next 10 years. 20 percent of South African adults are estimated to be infected with HIV, with women and the poor being disproportionally affected.

“HIV/Aids is South Africa’s most daunting development challenge, and is a grave threat to the country’s achievements since the fall of apartheid in 1994,” he continues.

“It is thus evident that the high prevalence of HIV and Aids in South Africa poses major challenges for government, business and civil society groups. What is equally evident is that given the anticipated scale of the impact of HIV on all aspects of society, each sector will be unable to have an impact on the pandemic if it acts in isolation.”

Gregory believes that the effects of the pandemic can only be minimized and reversed through urgent and coordinated, national, provincial and local action.

And what about the role of business? “Although social justice philosophy may not yet be common parlance in South Africa, the idea resonates with important values and priorities in the corporate social investment sector, such as redressing historic imbalances, transformation, empowerment and sustainability,” he continues. “With its pivotal resources of finance, expertise and innovation, business can really make a difference. But it cannot do so alone, nor without a vision of the fairer society we want to achieve.”

The government has to an extent imposed a responsibility on all businesses to drive social investment through its mandatory tax structure. But there are additional things that can be done and done relatively cheaply to promote development, notes Gregory.

“It becomes immediately apparent that business and charity are about as compatible as oil is to water and one could be excused for questioning the stated importance of philanthropy to this matter. The reality is however that business measures everything in terms of tangible quantifiable numbers while the results or ‘return on investment’ of an HIV programme are going to be slow in maturing and difficult to quantify. How does society measure the financial value of one infection prevented? At what stage does one measure the results of an awareness programme? These complexities make the ‘investment’ in an HIV programme something more akin to charity than to business necessity.”

“The term philanthropy denotes ‘charity’ or vertical giving,” adds Gregory. “This is essentially from rich to poor and is meant to alleviate the symptoms of poverty and inequality, rather than to change the structural, systemic marginalisation of those on the fringes of affluent society. Much lip service is paid to the need to address the challenges of poverty and social exclusion but the reality is that enormous divisions remain among the various actors in development.”

“On a practical level, any plan that is to address such a wide scope of issues has to be founded on a few simple philosophies and goals. For example, to prevent long-term dependence on medication the most viable option is prevention; for those already infected the goal must be appropriate care. These and similar ethics must in some way be embodied in the value system of an organization in order for them to take life.”

Gregory says that the fundamentals of defeating the disease and which need to be embraced by business are:

• Prevent further HIV infection;

• Provide treatment;

• Provide care and support for those infected and affected by HIV;

• Assert the human and legal rights of all affected by the disease; and

• Take every possible opportunity to test people and for them to know their status.

An organization's HIV and AIDS strategy should be aimed at two levels. Firstly direct attention is to be afforded the employer’s own workforce and their dependents. The purpose here is to develop good practice models to increase people’s access to comprehensive services in HIV/Aids prevention, care and support, and mitigation of the impact of disease.

Secondly and on an indirect level, it is important that companies make an effort at promoting awareness of the disease within local communities. A programme of supporting local organisations, specifically those engaged in HIV and Aids alleviation, can be an important source of future goodwill for the business.

“Given that HIV/Aids affects every sector of our society, all initiatives – awareness campaigns, care for the affected and research, testing drives, care for orphans, prevention messages – all are strengthened by a partnership approach,” points out Gregory.

A multitude of agencies, government departments, charities and non-governmental organisations exist that can assist business in its involvement with the disease. A simple search of the Internet will deliver hundreds of names in South Africa of organisations able to assist or who have skills to share.

“The shock of HIV and the suffering that Aids triggers is responsible for sucking the wealth out of the economy in a cycle of unsustainable consumption. A multi-sectoral and coordinated response is required to bring about societal change and in this regard business has a critical role to play in growing a culture of giving, infused with an ethos of social justice.”

Both the direct and indirect costs of doing business are going to increase dramatically over the next five years,” concludes Gregory. “Whether we like it or not someone has to pay the price.”

Levelling the playing fields The South African soccer field has traditionally been a male bastion but we are moving forward.

Hottest six-pack in SA? Who does the hottest six-pack in South Africa belong to? Read this to find out...

'The woman on p194' What do you think of the appearance in a fashion magazine of a model who fills more of the page?