Business skills are needed to beat Aids in Africa
Financial Times- The world's reaction to the devastating tsunamis that struck south Asia has been heartening and instructive. It is clear that people want to help those in need. Yet there is a different kind of tsunami ravaging sub-Saharan Africa. With an estimated 5,000 to 8,000 Africans dying of Aids every 24 hours, it is the equivalent of a tsunami striking the continent every third or fourth week.
There are signs of progress. According to a recent World Health Organisation report, 700,000 people living with HIV in developing countries now receive treatment - 75 per cent more than last year. Still, there is much to do in addition to providing life-saving therapies. To reach the millions at risk and in need, global companies have been establishing partnerships with public agencies, universities, research institutes and philanthropic and non-government organisations to launch a broad attack on the pandemic.
In recent years, funding for such programmes as prevention, education, testing, treatment, stigma reduction and poverty alleviation has substantially increased. The WHO and UNaids estimate that more than Dollars 5bn (Euros 3.8bn) has been made available to fight Aids in the developing world. But while financial support must continue to grow, it is time for companies to expand their view of how they can increase efforts to mitigate the crisis. Having recently returned from Africa, I am convinced the answer lies in companies donating the capabilities and expertise that they rely on to run their businesses. Five years ago, when funding for Aids initiatives in Africa was scarce, Bristol-Myers Squibb established the Secure the Future programme to combat the pandemic.
Since then, the Dollars 120m we have invested through some 170 initiatives has taught us lessons that serve as both cautionary tales and potential templates for others. From the outset, we complemented our financial contributions with making our company experts in health policy and clinical research available to recipients of our grants.
We soon learnt that many recipients - whether a ministry of health or a newly formed community-based organisation of grandmothers - not only wanted but needed our expertise in complex project management, monitoring and evaluation, organisational management, strategic planning and finance. We saw that a global business model was urgently required.
In fact, we have re-learnt the lesson that global companies learn every day: even generously funded initiatives will not work if integrated systems are not in place to support them.
Corporate partners should approach the HIV/Aids crisis not only as a human tragedy, which it is first and foremost, but also as an unprecedented business challenge - a chance to apply business expertise to the most catastrophic problems imaginable. Moreover, by helping grassroots programme managers embrace accountability and adaptability, companies can ensure that best practices are followed.
For years now, our company experts in anti-retroviral treatment have been training recipients of our grants in conducting "outcomes" research - the kind of research that can lead to important changes in public policy. Recipients can now design protocols, establish review boards and build their own capacity to collect and interpret data - all vital in helping to achieve the difficult goal of sustainably increasing the number of people receiving anti-retroviral treatment.
To achieve broad replication of effective programmes, global companies must think creatively about the expertise they can contribute, such as clinical specialists to train local healthcare practitioners and educate traditional healers; advertising and communications specialists to market HIV prevention and treatment techniques; and logistics and transportation specialists to ensure that medication reaches remote places, such as the small kingdoms of Lesotho and Swaziland, where the prevalence of HIV/Aids is high.
Expertise from the technology sector is also critical, in addition to providing the hardware and software that allow a large number of patient records to be managed and "telemedicine" initiatives, linking doctors and patients via the internet, to be introduced. And we need accountants and auditors to ensure that the billions of donated dollars reach organisations working on the ground and are spent efficiently.
Ultimately, we cannot respond successfully to the Aids pandemic with money or medication alone. We in the global corporate community have a unique opportunity to apply our expertise and know-how to a fight we must all be part of.
The writer is chairman and chief executive officer of Bristol-Myers Squibb
