How business in Africa can fight Aids - advice from the frontline
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| One of thousands of children orphaned by Aids in KwaZulu-Natal province |
Paris, 3 December 2001 - A business leader from the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Durban, capital of the South African province with the world's highest rate of HIV/Aids infection, will tell a major UN/business conference here Thursday that the workplace is where treatment can be managed most effectively.
Chief Executive of the Durban chamber, Dr Jeya Wilson, will describe at a one-day conference at ICC's Paris headquarters the advice the chamber is giving to its members coping with Aids among employees in Durban, the capital of KwaZulu Natal. The Durban chamber is the largest in South Africa, with about 4,500 member companies.
Dr Wilson will be addressing a conference on the business response to conflict and deprivation in Africa called by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the Business Humanitarian Forum.
In a presentation prepared for the conference, she lists strategic imperatives for companies - what business must do. These include prolonging the productive life of employees and at best providing treatment for them and their spouses. This, Dr Wilson maintains, is more effective than filling skills gaps through retraining and hiring.
She criticizes what she terms "The Ostrich response", when companies put their head in the sand and do little or nothing, viewing the disease as a human resource issue alone and ignoring the increased costs involved.
Besides discussing health issues affecting business, the conference will debate the role of business in mitigating outbreaks of violence, business cooperation with refugee organizations, and business investment in post-conflict reconstruction.
Speakers will include representatives from Aventis, Coca-Cola, DeBeers, Nestlé, Pfizer and Shell. Ibrahim A. Gambari, UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Advisor on Africa, heads the list of speakers from the United Nations.