Counting the costs of HIV and AIDS to civil-society organisations

Abstract

HIV threatens the survival of many civil-society organisations (CSOs) in Africa. While we know the range of potential costs to such groups, we lack a detailed picture of the extent of the impact. This article highlights important findings from exploratory research in Malawi. Respondents perceived that overall performance in the four CSOs studied declined by an average 20 per cent because they were working in a context of high HIV prevalence. Yet the CSOs' workplace response to this threat was very limited, and they remain highly vulnerable to future impact. We consider why the CSOs have not been more proactive, and we recommend that donor policy should help partners to respond to the epidemic and enable them to remain effective.

Keywords:

• Social Sector
• Civil Society
• Gender and Diversity
• Aid
• Sub-Saharan Africa

The author

The authors Rick James is Principal Capacity Building Specialist at INTRAC (International Training and Research Centre), focusing on strategy and leadership development for civil-society organisations. He has researched and written extensively on HIV and AIDS and capacity building, religious faith in organisational change, and the monitoring and evaluation of capacity building. Contact details: INTRAC, PO Box 563, Oxford, [email protected]

Brenda Katundu is an organisational development practitioner based in CABUNGO, the Capacity Building Unit for NGOs (Malawi). She has extensive experience of working with local and international NGOs on issues of organisational change, particularly with respect to HIV and AIDS. CABUNGO is an NGO-support organisation. Contact details: CABUNGO, PO Box 234, Blantyre, [email protected]

Notes

1. To estimate the impact of HIV and AIDS, we make assumptions about the proportion of medical and funeral costs and death cover that can be attributed to the epidemic. Using the proxy indicator that 70 per cent of in-patients in Malawi government hospitals are HIV + (UNDP/MIM 2002 triangulated with other studies), we extrapolate that 70 per cent of the costs noted in this survey are HIV-related. The number of HIV-related funerals compared with non-HIV-related funerals attended by CSO staff suggests that this is an accurate assumption.