Launching of the BCHA/Media Workplace Project

Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,

      I wish to thank the Business Coalition Against HIV/AIDS for convening this project launching. I also see government, labor and the private sector represented and I am happy to share this podium with some of the leaders of the fight against HIV/AIDS in Swaziland.

      The past few years have seen a sea change in the global response to AIDS. Spending on AIDS in low and middle income countries has more than doubled since the beginning of 2000 to its current level of over $5 billion. It has been widely accepted that at least $10 billion annually is needed - and with the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief now underway, we are getting there.

      In the world of work, the ILO's Code of Practice, adopted in 2001 was a landmark. It represents an agreed tripartite model for action on AIDS, and has been instrumental in setting norms.

     But despite the sea change in funding, attitudes and the norms for the response to AIDS, we are still a long way from the scale of implementation that is needed to start reversing the epidemic.

     This is a problem with a solution - but only with leadership. Governments are essential to the leadership equation: only they command national policy and resources. No NGO or business can replace this role. The countries where HIV incidence is falling are those where governments have stepped up to the line – Uganda, Thailand, Cambodia, Brazil, Senegal. The list is getting longer. 

      But if governments do not have the support of other sectors, they are doomed to fail on AIDS. AIDS is a crisis and it needs a crisis response. The AIDS epidemic is on a scale that demands this type of response - it needs us all to rewrite the boundaries of enlightened self interest, and indeed the boundaries of where social responsibility starts and stops. 

      It is pure bottom-line responsibility for business and unions to support workplace responses to AIDS.

      There is evidence that some businesses in hard hit countries have reacted to AIDS by systematically shifting the burden to the public sector and households - by screening employees, reducing benefits, retrenching staff and outsourcing contracts. But this is short-term and self-defeating thinking - it will only accelerate shrinking markets and the poor investment climate accompanying social instability.

       I am much more heartened by seeing the beginnings of ethical business responses to the epidemic, which may have a profound and lasting impact on both the epidemic and business itself.

      At the end of the nineteenth century, the workers' movement on this continent rallied around the cry for `eight hours work, eight hours recreation and eight hours rest.' Perhaps we should apply the same division of life to AIDS, and say we need programmes equally in the workplace, the community and in the bedroom.

      The fact is, they are all related. We have already seen workplace provision of HIV treatment threatened, because workers are unwilling to come forward if they know they won't be protected from discrimination, or that their spouses or children won't get access, or that their treatment will last only as long as their job does.

      Until recently, it has been workplace programming that has lagged behind community and national efforts. But today there is an explosion of good practice and in some countries, business is definitely ahead of government. I believe every company, every trade union and every government department represented in this room are becoming leaders and innovators in AIDS programming.

      In Swaziland, the US Embassy's highest priority is to assist the GOKS in effectively combating the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. We currently support HIV/AIDS projects via 6 USG agencies:

* CDC/USAID---the sponsor of this activity--through NGO grants, PMTCT transmission, human capacity development/training, counseling, social marketing, behavior change, mass media, etc

*  DOD--testing, awareness and equipment for the Swazi Defense Forces

*  Africa Dev Foundation--for rural food security & ag production devoted to AIDS-effected communities

*  Peace Corps--55 volunteers working in rural Swazi AIDS-effected communities

*  DOL--via a grant to the ILO for another workplace HIV program

      Also, we are the largest contributor to the Global Fund which has provided some $50m in HIV/AIDS support to Swaziland. The total USG support for HIV/AIDS projects in Swaziland, including the GF contribution, is some $30 million with financing from USAID, particularly, on the upswing.

      But I mentioned, that we are already involved with workplace HIV/AIDS programs in Swaziland and many other such activities are underway worldwide.

      What are the results of business's engagement on AIDS? Well, they include workplace prevention campaigns, community outreach, anti-discrimination policies and an increasing number of company-supported HIV treatment access programmes.

      We all need to try to make these programmes the norm, not the exception. We urgently need to get to the point at which such action is just normal baseline for any company who cares about its workforce and any union that is responsibly protecting its members.

      The costs to business need not be large.

      The costs of inaction are far greater.

      So let me finish with the three immediate challenges to wider implementation of effective workplace responses.

      First, there is the challenge of keeping workplaces abreast of the information they need - both the state of the epidemic and norms and standards for good practice in the response. Donors and international AIDS organizations have a role, but it is also a responsibility that must become core business of the employers and union organizations.

      Second, we must not neglect small and medium enterprises. An interesting World Bank study on why some Nigerian companies responded to AIDS and other didn't showed it depended on three things:

      1. whether they knew someone in the company was HIV-positive or had died of AIDS,

      2. whether they had received AIDS information from an outside source in the past
      year, and

      3. whether they were part of a family of firms or an industrial group.

     If small and medium enterprises are outside the information and resources loop, they are not going to take action against AIDS.

     Third, the `proof of concept' of workplace action on AIDS is still needed, with examples that demonstrate unequivocally the economic as well as the social importance of work place interventions.

      The fact is that today, we have all the resolutions, plans, guidelines and polices that we need.

      What we don't have is enough on the ground action. Inevitably the real difference will be made - in the tough bargaining between employers and unions for workplace conditions and benefits, and in hard-nosed decisions about allocating company and government resources.

      The organizations represented in this room have the power to make the difference.

       So let’s get to work.

       Thank you.