Business and HIV/AIDS - Mekelle Chamber

• Introduction and Justification

• Response of the Business community to HIV/AIDS

• The Need for Joining Hands of the Business Community against HIV/AIDS

• Expectations from the Business Community

Introduction and Justification   [top]

Tigray regional state is located in the northern part of the country. The region is divided into 37 administrative weredas. The population of Tigray is estimated to be 3,708,000. As many of the Ethiopian regional states the bulk of the population is under the age of 15 years resulting with high dependency burden.

The broad masses of Tigray has been lacking of access for basic health services, including HIV/AIDS Prevention. Women and children have been affected under such circumstances thus resulting with high maternal and child morbidity and mortality. The business community of Mekelle town shares the poor health care delivery service system existing in Tigray.

The HIV/AIDS pandemic is no more just a health and humanitarian crisis but also an impediment to an overall development of the country through its negative effects. The business community seems not to understand very well that it is the most serious, labor, and humanitarian challenge of our time. The epidemic HIV/AIDS apparently doesn’t seem getting full attention of stakeholders in the society that it certainly deserves.

Mekelle town, which is the capital of Tigray Regional state, has a population of over 180,000. Mekelle's population as any urban center elsewhere in Ethiopia is highly affected by HIV /AIDS. The Mekelle Business community having realizing the intensity of the pandemic that is the infection among adults, one out of six has determined to take preventive actions by joining hands with relevant bodies operating in the same area in order to mitigate the negative social and economic consequences.

Response of the Business community to HIV/AIDS    [top]

It is quite understandable that the overall socio-economic environment on which business is conducted has a crucial bearing on its profitability & even survival. On such environment that is seriously threatened by the HIV/AIDS pandemic is social stability, tremendous burden massive AIDS orphans, added to the immense of the street children, decline of education owing to loss of experienced teachers, erosion of the national value system as the result of the obliteration of families weakness of our defense forces because the high prevalence of the disease is in the military. This atmosphere could seriously threaten the social and political stability that is necessary for business to flourish.

At the moment business people in Ethiopia seem not fighting HIV/AIDS at full scale since most business leaders are assumed not to realize the magnitude of the problem and its potential consequences.

There are ample opportunities and areas for effective business participation in preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS in work places through the following ways.

1.      Business persons can use their experience in promoting their products by introducing innovative marketing tools for the promotion and marketing of condoms;

2.      Business marketing skills can be used in identifying tools for targeting highly affected groups in the community such as youth;

3.      Business can take a number of work place actions to safeguard their own employee’s from disease and contribute to the care of affected works;

4.      Business can also use their tremendous financial resources and extensive contacts in government lobbying for an effective AIDS policy in the country and participate in mobilizing the large community for preventive action, contributing towards the care of orphans and the loving care of those afflicted by the disease;

And others

The Need for Joining Hands of the

Business Community against HIV/AIDS    [top]

Mekelle chamber of commerce and Sectorial Association, which is an autonomists non-governmental, non-political and non profit organization that acts on behalf of its members, has a commitment on the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS in collaboration with stakeholders and other sectors of government, non governmental and private organizations.

Business organizations with operations; these business organizations, depending on their areas of expertise may rotate their volunteering staff to complement the community-based social welfare activities of their field operations. Volunteers may assist in information, communication, and education campaigns against HIV transmission. They may also provide technical assistance to local jurisdictions and civil society on setting up accountability mechanisms and assist in training or retraining local staff on personnel and logistics management issues. These volunteers may also provide technical assistance on community-based micro-credit services for rural women and other forms of activities that could increase the earning potentials of women, and possibly reduce the need to engage in high-risk behaviors to feed themselves and their children. Unaids regards the interruption of male-oriented sexual networking as critical to overall HIV/AIDS remedial efforts. The key is to match recipient country needs in the fight against HIV/AIDS with that of available skill set.

The Mekelle Chamber of Commerce and Sectorial Association having understood HIV/AIDS as care of impediment to development in depleting the productive work force resulting to lower productivity and incurring high cost budget on people employed in the business sector such as:

A)     Insurance;

B)     Payment for those sick who could not work;

C)     Burial ceremony;

D)     Expenses for educational activities underway are determined to prevent and control its spread.

Expectations from the Business Community   [top]

Mekelle chamber of commerce and Sectorial Association a body which is the representative of the business community is obliged to perform the following tasks endorsed by the National body as:

• Support orphans who lost their parents;

• Train for leaders and workers of business organizations;

• Encourage business people on production of antiretroviral drugs;

• Include short messages on HIV/AIDS prevention when advertise routine business by radio television, news papers etc.

Mekelle chamber of commerce and Sectorial Association considering HIV/AIDS as one of the most serious humanitarian and development challenges facing the country in general and the business community in particular has determined to join hands in the struggle to fight against the  epidemic with government, NGO’s, professional  association, civic societies, CBO’s, religion leaders ….. etc at various levels.

In general, HIV/AIDS epidemic is unusual in its scope and magnitude. An effective response must also be imaginative, creative, and tailored to meet the needs of target populations. Ethiopia in the next decade will likely lack the requisite local workforce needed to mount a comprehensive, multi-Sectorial response against HIV/AIDS. It is believed that an international paid volunteer HIV/AIDS services corps can enhance the capacity of hard-hit Ethiopia to scale up its response in the short term. Remedial efforts against HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia must marshal the extraordinary compassion felt by all men and women of goodwill into a call for service.

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