IFC, WB Focus on Private-Public Partnerships to Combat AIDS

none 18 Jan 2008 – 12:41

by mlepeska

To commemorate World AIDS Day, World Bank hosted a seminar on the role of private sector partners in implementing innovative approaches to effectively combat HIV and AIDS.

Many companies recognize the challenges HIV/AIDS presents to their businesses but do not know where to start [in dealing with
them], therefore the role of public-sprivate partnerships and IFC is critical," said VP Jyrki Koskelo.

Organized by IFC Against AIDS, the South Asia Finance and Private Sector (SASPF) unit, and the South Asia Region (SAR) AIDS team of the World Bank, the seminar focused on the leadership role of private sector partners in implementing innovative approaches to effectively combat HIV/AIDS. Introducing the seminar, World Bank Managing Director, Jose Luis Daboub said the seminar was part of an ongoing dialogue between the World Bank and IFC with private sector players in South Asia and Africa, in particular, on how to scale up the private sector engagement and explore its leadership role in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

IFC is currently engaged with 25 client HIV/AIDS projects linked to $1 billions in IFC investments in 10 countries, including India. IFC clients and their partners are on average contributing 75 percent of the total cost of managing HIV/AIDS in their workplaces and immediate surrounding communities. Support from IFC's performance-based seed funding program is currently covering 25 percent of the eligible costs of each company's HIV/AIDS program. The objective of these grants is to support the launch, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation of workplace and community HIV/AIDS programs of clients in Africa and India.

IFC's AIDS program is working to increase impact through supply chains of big companies in extractive industries and banks, which are a conduit to reaching small and medium enterprises (SMEs), and by building the capacity of both the large and small companies to manage HIV/AIDS in their operations.

The session highlighted three aspects of private sector engagement on HIV/AIDS:

  1. Capitalizing on established private sector business models to fund HIV/AIDS initiatives;
  2. Drawing on the expertise of the private sector to fight HIV/AIDS through public-private partnerships (PPPs); and
  3. Behavior change communication and corporate social responsibility for

HIV/AIDS using the example of the power of the moving image for social awareness campaigns on HIV/AIDS. The session featured three panelists each of which showed a short video. Sai Paranjpye, an acclaimed Indian filmmaker, and recipient of one of India's highest civilian awards, the Padma Bhushan, said that while India tops the list of countries with the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases, few have a clue as to its cause and effect. Quoting a recent 'Times of India article, Sai said 40 percent of college students in Mumbai believed that the HIV virus was contracted by kissing, while 45 percent attributed it to mosquitoes! "If this is the awareness level of our educated youth, one may well imagine what the situation would be in illiterate and underprivileged belts," she said.

Emphasizing the role of film as a potent and effective tool of communication, Sai said the private sector has both a heart and a pocket and can easily fund or sponsor powerful state of the art films that would take the HIV/AIDS awareness message beyond their compounds to entire nations. "What they could realize upon reflection is that a single dynamic film could perhaps achieve more than all their ongoing 'care' activities put together," she said.

Sai, whose career as a film maker spans 30 years, is working on a new HIV/AIDS film which World Bank Vice President for South Asia, Praful Patel, who delivered the closing remarks promised to help "figure out how to fund."

The other panelist was Tamsin Smith, President of Product Red, an initiative by Bono and Bobby Shriver to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS in Africa through a partnership with global private companies. RED's model has employed a portion of profits from leading companies including Gap, Motorola, and American Express to produce specially branded products. A portion of profits from each (RED) item sold goes directly to the Global Fund to invest in African AIDS programs, with a focus on women and children. "We haven't announced this publicly yet but we've just tipped over the $50 million mark [funds that have been generated so far]," Tamsin announced.
"Its only the consumers that have done it, we haven't." Saying it costs 43 cents a day to keep an HIV/AIDS patient alive, Tamsin explained that money from the red products is helping to create the "Lazarus effect" of bringing an individual back to life. Product Red is educating consumers to make the red choice by employing three key words—inspire, empower and connect. Red products do not cost more than the other products on the market.

Quoting UNAIDS Executive Director, Peter Piot, the third panelist, Michael Cover, Senior Vice President of Ogilvy PR Worldwide, one of the world's leading international communications firms, which specializes in social marketing, said that the media can save more lives than physicians can. There are four principles in consumer marketing—product, price, place and promotion. In social marketing the product is taking an HIV test, the place is where people get information, and promotion is the long term sustainability which requires constantly changing your tactics to keep the HIV/AIDS prevention message fresh. By leveraging their position as financiers, both IFC and the World Bank can engage the private sector to conduct effective social marketing campaigns.

Some key take-aways from the seminar for the World Bank Group included stepping up PPPs as powerful ways to extend HIV awareness and education aimed at the reduction of HIV transmission and stigma, leveraging our convening role to help potential private sector partners to identify opportunities for participation, and extending public health services by using business infrastructure and supply networks.

Contributed by Martin Lutalo, CSMLK

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