visionary leadership : innovative partnerships : development solutions
eBulletin the monthly newsletter from the
International Business Leaders Forum
December 2006 issue
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HIV/AIDS awarenessTime for business to act on communicable and non-communicable diseases

In 2006, 4 million contracted HIV. In total, 40 million people are now living with the disease, and it is still spreading rapidly all over the world.

Initially, many companies found it difficult to understand why HIV/AIDS might be an issue for them, but as the impact on their employees, communities, suppliers and markets increased, this changed dramatically. Today the potential impact on business operations is all too clear in many parts of the world and a growing body of experience in responding to the challenge is now available.

A lot of attention has been paid to the role of business in the prevention of HIV/AIDS. This is without doubt an important issue issue, but it needs to be looked at in the wider context of a company's health and safety work.

IBLF strongly believes that companies should include in their health and safety policies and procedures responses both to a range of communicable diseases – including HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, SARS, Bird flu – and to non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, diabetes and alcohol and drug dependency. All these problems have the potential to seriously affect the lives of employees and their families and to disrupt operations.

Recent IBLF work on communicable diseases – focused around World Aids Day on 1 December – includes a Financial Times report on Business and Aids in conjunction with IBLF and the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS. Robert Davies, IBLF chief executive, appeared on CNBC to talk about the business case for companies to tackle HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases through their core operations. Read more

More on IBLF's work on business and health
More on the business case for tackling HIV/AIDS


The IBLF agenda for business action on communicable and non-communicable diseases:

1. The business case for investing in health should be clearly articulated and disseminated to support advocacy and awareness raising on the valid and distinct role of business. 2. Each company's health and safety work should embrace a response to both communicable and non-communicable diseases, with the consequent management and training that is required.
 
 
3. Business should play its part in improving local capacity in government, public services and civil society organisations for the delivery of education and heath care services. All too often, actors work individually and therefore the impact is nominal. All actors need to work together towards a common agenda, with each bringing their distinct competencies. 4. Business should take advantage of opportunities for collective action in their overall response to the health and safety agenda - sharing knowledge and experience, pooling resources, increasing impact, and as a platform for business to engage in public policy debate.
 
 
5. When leaders speak, people listen. Companies could encourage international and national leaders to make informed public announcements where appropriate, for example in the case of HIV/AIDS to help overcome issues of stigma. They should also encourage their own CEOs to speak out on important and relevant public health issues. 6. Companies should strive to ensure their actions do not have a negative impact on the capacity of the local community, for example by attracting too many competent health care staff to private clinics by paying more or giving better benefits.
 
 
7. Companies should scale up impact by making health benefits as far as possible also available to migrant workers and other seasonal workers, as well as to spouses, dependents of employees and, where feasible, the local community. 8. Companies should conduct regular impact assessments to ensure that they anticipate the problems rather than react to developments.
 
 
9. Companies need to be mindful of the influence of local culture and religion on their approach to awareness raising, prevention and education around many health and safety issues. With regards to HIV/AIDS, for example, there are important differences between the situation in Middle Eastern (Islamic countries) and some countries in sub Saharan Africa. 10. With respect to HIV/AIDS, businesses should pay special attention to the particular vulnerability of women (and therefore children) in terms both of growing female infection rates and maternal-to-child transmission.

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IBLF has available a range of tools and resource guides, including:

Sustainable Hotel Siting, Design & Construction

A series of publications on cross-sector partnerships

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IBLF promotes responsible business leadership and partnerships for sustainable international development