The State of Business and HIV/AIDS (2006) - Booz Allen Hamilton

2 The Context for Business Involvement in HIV/AIDS
9
The Global Business Coalition (GBC) was
established in 1997 to fully engage the private
sector and recognize business as an important
partner in ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Today, the GBC is the preeminent business
organization leading the business fight against
HIV/AIDS. Membership has grown steadily in the
past 5 years and today consists of more than 200
international companies committed to expanding
and improving the business response to HIV/AIDS
across 20 industry sectors. Figure 4 shows year-end
membership numbers.
In pursuing its mission to harness the power and
capability of the global business community to
overcome HIV/AIDS, the GBC serves as an interface
between member companies, senior government
officials, and the international development
community. The GBC also provides the means to
ensure that the voice of business is heard and
that the business sector contributes to national
and international strategies that most adequately
address the deepening HIV/AIDS crisis.
To help companies design their responses to
HIV/AIDS, the GBC has created an approach,
the Business AIDS Methodology (BAM), which
facilitates HIV strategy development in four practical
areas—the workplace, community, core competency,
and advocacy and leadership. Once a company
implements its HIV strategy, the GBC’s Best Practice
AIDS Standard (BPAS) self-assessment tool enables
the company to confidentially monitor its HIV/AIDS
response and examine its progress. The BPAS
expands the four BAM areas into the ten categories
used in this baseline to accurately assess corporate
engagement in HIV/AIDS.
34
2001
82
2002
122
2003
170
2004
200
2005
2.1 Global HIV/AIDS Context
212
Equivalent to
~11 million
employees
2006
(April)
Today, 40 million people worldwide are living with
HIV/AIDS. In 2005 alone, nearly 5 million people
were newly infected with the virus. Southern Africa
remains the epicenter of the pandemic. Prevalence
rates in KwaZulu-Natal, the worst affected province
of South Africa, have reached 40 percent, while
the rate among pregnant women attending antenatal
clinics in South Africa is reading 30 percent 5 .
Estimates suggest that the prevalence in Asia stands
at 0.4 percent, but that figure will rise quickly without
adequate prevention. It is projected that by 2010 6 ,
more people will be affected in Asia than in Africa.
Figure 4
GBC Membership,
End 2001—April 2006
5 UNAIDS/WHO, AIDS
Epidemic Update, 2005
6 DFID (Department for
International Development),
HIV and AIDS fact
sheet, 2004