Solutions Panorama

Mobilizing Civil Society for
Better Access to HIV/AIDS
Medication
Featuring:
The Treatment Action Campaign
Location:
South Africa
Time Frame:
1998 - Present
DESCRIPTION
During the late 1990s, the South African government
contended that it could not afford to introduce drugbased
prevention and HIV/AIDS treatment regimes.
As a result, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC),
an advocacy group run by people living with HIV and
AIDS, launched in 1998. The Campaign used different
strategies to convince the government to support
the introduction of drug-based prevention and HIV/
AIDS treatment regimens through a combination of
budget advocacy, litigation against the government,
and mobilization of civil society. For all its demands,
the Campaign first followed all the formal established
By providing
the HIV/AIDS
medication the
government could
save US$45,000
every six months
in treatment costs.
channels of communication with the government,
followed by court action or civil disobedience when
necessary.
Mobilizing grassroots support for its objectives was
also a key strategic focus of the Campaign. Civil
society organizations like Act Up and the Stop Aids
Campaign organized solidarity events all over the
world in support of the TAC.
One effective strategy the Campaign employed was
to gather evidence from a costing exercise of HIV
medication, the analysis showed that by providing the
medication the government could save US$45,000
every six months in treatment costs. The Campaign
took the evidence they had gathered a step further
and developed a sample provincial health budget
analysis showing under-expenditure of US$63 million
in 2000 to further explain how the government could
afford to provide medication to HIV/AIDS patients.
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