Printer friendly version     Send to a friend

Increased Concern About HIV/Aids Spreading Throughout the International Business Community

12 January 2006 - Geneva, Switzerland

Concern over the growing threat of HIV/AIDS is beginning to have a significant effect on the global business’ community, according to an extensive survey just released by the World Economic Forum. Nearly half (46%) of the business leaders surveyed in the report released today by the Forum’s Global Health Initiative say they expect the disease to impact their operations over the next five years. That’s an increase of 9 percentage points in just the last 12 months. The challenge now facing businesses throughout the world is to convert this concern into programmes that are strong enough to control the impact of the disease on their business.

“Business is becoming increasingly aware of the positive impact it can make on the disease, but the devil is in the detail,” said Francesca Boldrini, Director, Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum. “In order to successfully scale up efforts against the HIV/AIDS pandemic, firms need to develop increasingly robust HIV/AIDS workplace programmes which tackle the underlying root problems of the disease – discrimination and access to treatment.”

The report Business & HIV/AIDS: A Healthier Partnership?* polls the views of almost 11,000 business leaders in 117 countries and shows that:
· Concern is rising about the expected impact of HIV/AIDS on firms’ operations over the next five years (46% compared to 37% last year).
· Very few firms have conducted a quantitative HIV/AIDS risk assessment (9%).
· The majority of firms where national HIV prevalence exceeds 1 in 5 have formal HIV/AIDS policies (58%).
· Where prevalence drops below 1 in 5, very few firms have a policy (20%) and these are likely to be informal.
· Policies addressing the issues of discrimination in promotion, pay or benefits based on HIV status are rare (18%).

The report highlights that the majority of policies need to be strengthened to cover the minimization of stigma, the promotion of non-discrimination based on HIV-status, and support systems to assist employees in gaining access to antiretroviral treatments, rather than focusing solely on HIV prevention.

“HIV and AIDS is the defining moral issue of our time and businesses must play a critical role in the fight against the global spread of the epidemic. The business community is uniquely positioned to use our influence, resources and leadership to challenge stigma, promote prevention and facilitate treatment,” said William H. Roedy, President of MTV Networks International and an UNAIDS Ambassador. “There is no choice, no option, we must all be engaged and mobilized.”

The report also unveils new research into the triggers for US-based business involvement to tackle HIV/AIDS. For more than a quarter of the US firms surveyed, HIV/AIDS policies cost them less than US$ 500,000. US-based businesses would be open to expanding their HIV/AIDS programs if:
· The virus posed a threat to customer base and distribution chains (61%).
· Their supply chains were hit (56%).
· Workforce prevalence rose above 1% in the next five years (49%).
· AIDS philanthropy was shown to boost their firm’s reputation (43%).

“It’s not surprising that only 1% of US-based firms report a serious impact from HIV/AIDS on their business given the relatively low prevalence of HIV/AIDS,” commented David Bloom, Professor of Economics and Demography at the Harvard School of Public Health, and lead author of the report. “Looking at the findings of the report more broadly, we see that businesses which have been successful in this area actually assess the risk of HIV/AIDS to their organization and then put formal policies in place. Unfortunately, many firms do one or the other of these steps, rarely combining the two, which may be leading to weakened, or at worst, ineffective HIV/AIDS policies.”
The report was published by the Global Health Initiative of the World Economic Forum, The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR), Harvard School of Public Health and UNAIDS. The findings build on the results of the two previous annual Business & HIV/AIDS reports published in 2004 and 2005, providing the largest ever insight into global commitment of the private sector to HIV/AIDS.

“In recent years we have seen business become more aware of the threat posed by AIDS leading them to take a bigger role in acting against the disease,” said Ben Plumley, Director, Executive Office, UNAIDS. “The potential of the private sector’s contribution is immense and there is so much more it can still do to help. The findings of this report will really help us understand how we can engage more businesses in addressing the growing threat of HIV.”

To download a full copy of the report please visit http://www.weforum.org/globalhealth/globalsurvey

Printer friendly version     Send to a friend