World Economic Forum

Global Business Survey – Business and HIV/AIDS: Who me?

January 22, 2004

The World Economic Forum Global health Initiative (GHI) released a groundbreaking new report during its 2004 Annual Meeting in Davos. Covering 103 economies, the 2003-2004 GHI report Business and HIV/AIDS: Who Me? provides the first global survey of business leaders on their perceptions regarding the impact of HIV/AIDS and their responses to the pandemic. The full report was made available during the Forum’s 2004 Annual Meeting. This report provides business leaders, NGOs and policy makers with a tool to benchmark country-level business leader opinions as well as data-driven recommendations to guide future action. The results are also relevant for national business coalitions tackling HIV/AIDS.

Key findings and recommendations

Of the 7,789 business leaders polled:

47% of firms felt HIV/AIDS is having or will have some impact on their business, with firms more worried about HIV/AIDS than tuberculosis or malaria;

Most business leaders estimate lower HIV infection rates among their workforce than UNAIDS figures for adult prevalence. Firms that have conducted workforce prevalence surveys report lower infection rates than those that have not;

20% of firms believe HIV/AIDS is or will seriously affect their communities, while few believe the epidemic will strike the community, but not their company;

16% of all firms provide information about the risks of infection, while 5% claim to provide anti-retrovirals for all HIV-positive staff;

Fewer than 6% have formally-approved written HIV policies;

Only 28% of executives believe their response to the epidemic is insufficient, although 56% of those who expect a serious impact on the business from the epidemic are dissatisfied with their companies’ response.

The report draws three general conclusions from these results:

Firms are not particularly active in combating HIV/AIDS, even when they expect the epidemic to cause serious problems for their business.
Businesses appear to be making decisions based on a fairly patchy assessment of the risks they face.
Firms seem to favour a broad social response to the epidemic, even if only a small number of businesses currently see themselves as an integral part of that response.

The report recommends the following measures be implemented in future:

Accurate, objective and unbiased information on HIV/AIDS must be generated and disseminated, covering areas such as workforce prevalence, the impact of the epidemic on businesses at different prevalence levels, and the cost effectiveness of business-sponsored prevention activity;

The potential of business associations and coalitions to tackle HIV/AIDS should continue to be utilized, as firms have a greater incentive to participate in and sponsor prevention activities if they can focus on the problems facing an industry sector or geographical area;

Public/private partnerships should be considered where they capitalize on the relative strengths of and incentives enjoyed by governments, NGOs and businesses.

The report was developed in partnership with the Harvard School of Public Health and UNAIDS. It was funded, in part, through a grant provided by UNAIDS. It was written by David E. Bloom, Lakshmi Reddy Bloom, David Steven and Mark Weston. It was edited by Kate Taylor and Peter DeYoung of the Global Health Initiative.

For more information or a copy of the report visit the World Economic Forum Global Health Initiative’s website: http://www.weforum.org/globalhealth or email us at [email protected].