'The winter of our discontent': HIV/AIDS and the corporate sector in Botswana

Type Journal Article - Africanus
Title 'The winter of our discontent': HIV/AIDS and the corporate sector in Botswana
Author(s)
Volume 38
Issue 1
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2008
Page numbers 43-53
URL https://journals.co.za/content/canus/38/1/EJC22655
Abstract
As a strategy to combat HIV / AIDS, Botswana has chosen a multi-sectoral approach to attain maximum participation of various sectors so that the fight against HIV / AIDS would have maximum impact on the pandemic. The study was conducted in the corporate sector of Botswana in 2000-2001 to assess the efforts these organisations were making to develop measures to protect the workplace from further contamination, to address the needs of employees and their families, and to appraise the level of corporate commitment in mainstreaming HIV / AIDS activities in the workplace. The study reveals that a majority (50.9%) of work organisations do not have health policies, let alone HIV policies. Although 64% of those interviewed claimed that their organisations do have such policies, very few places of employment have made the necessary provisions in terms of care, treatment, mitigation and prevention. However, several companies have adopted some form of prevention programmes with regard to HIV / AIDS, with the majority (70%) focusing on awareness campaigns. There is a need to mainstream HIV / AIDS activities into organisational structures. Lack of sufficient commitment to this may explain in part why the corporate sector has not made a major contribution to the multi-sectoral effort in the fight against the epidemic in the country.

Related studies

»