COMMISSION ON HIV/AIDS AND GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA
CHGA INTERACTIVE, ACCRA, GHANA 18TH - 19TH NOVEMBER, 2004

Representative from Ghana Trade Union Congress representative

Honourable Commissioner
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

HIV/AIDS pandemic is proving to be the most complex problem caused by health, socio-cultural and economic factors, all of which fuel the spread of the disease, and lead to diverse impact on individuals, communities and nations.

The magnitude of HIV/AIDS pandemic situation in sub-Sahara Africa is indeed alarming. If unchecked, the pandemic will continue to deprive families and communities of their young and productive people, slow economic growth, intensity poverty and inequality and place enormous burden on the health budget, reduce life expectancy even further and leave the next generation of Africans more vulnerable to the pandemic and with less hope for the future.

HIV/AIDS is a non-discriminatory disease. It does not attack the poor and leave the rich neither does it exclude the politician. Therefore fighting this scourge requires a multi-pronged approach. Getting everyone involved in the fight against HIV/AIDS is crucial and imperative.

A nation’s human resources constitute the source of its human capital, and there is a strong positive correlation between the rate of a country’s socio-economic development and the rate of its human development. All over the world, the epidemic is undermining economic activity and social progress. It is threatening livelihoods, reducing productivity, restricting the demand for products, discouraging foreign investment and negatively impacting economic growth.

HIV/AIDS is a major threat to the world of work because it is affecting the most productive segment of the labour force.

Ghana’s situation is no exception. At prevalence rate of almost 3.6 per cent Ghana risks losing its valuable human and material resources with dire consequences for the economic development of the country. HIV/AIDS is a crucial workplace issue, therefore Trade Union, employers and government need to demonstrate commitment towards HIV/AIDS issues at the workplace.

Employers and workers, and their respective organizations, need to come together in a social dialogue on HIV/AIDS workplace policies and programmes that is consistent with existing guidelines such as the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AID and the world of work. Our work, here today and in the coming days, will further inform such guidance tools as they evolve from lessons learned and best practice.

But even so, we need a much better understanding of what works, why and in what settings. We are still in the very early day of an effective response to HIV/AIDS. This interaction can provide the type of good practice and guidance we need to improve and scale up the response in the world of work, taking into consideration that although we have a generic policy framework, one size may not fit all contexts.

What is doable in multinational business environment, may be hard to replicate in smaller and medium size enterprises. We should also bear in mind that in Africa, the continent most heavily affected by HIV/AIDS, the majority of the labour force is found in the informal economy – many of them women entrepreneurs. Particularly in Africa but also elsewhere, women are disproportionately affected by this epidemic. An effective response to HIV/AIDS, in an often male dominated workplace, need to be gender-sensitive and involve family and community settings as well.

Scaling up access to treatment and increasing the effectiveness of prevention require new public-private partnership between social actors who in the past may not have had much experience of teaming up. HIV/AIDS is the exceptional case calling for such extraordinary team building. Many countries are already making desperate calls for good examples of practical partnerships to help them increase the coverage of HIV/AIDS programmes.

In Ghana we should also be interested in how we can replicate the partnership that we are forging at national level at the community level also.

We hope through our collective endeavours we can rise up to the grave challenge of good governance and national survival that is posed by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Thank you.

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