Taking the Aids fight to company boardrooms
By Julius Kitheka
The average life expectancy for Kenyans has dropped by 12 years in a duration of five years from 58 in 1996 to 46 years in 2001, and this largely due to HIV/Aids.
In 1996, the World Development Report estimated life expectancy without Aids in the country to grow to 69.2 years by 2010, and retard to 43.7 years with Aids. The life expectancy then was put at 58 years by the World Bank.
And according to the 2003 Human Development Report compiled by the UNDP, this had dropped to 46 years in 2001.
And given that it takes about 10 years before the full effects of HIV/Aids are felt, the situation is bound to become worse.
While the HIV/Aids prevalence rate has dropped to 10.5 per cent in 2002 from a high 13.5 in 2000, deaths and other effects will not peak until 2010.
Business has not been spared either. The pool of skills developed since independence is threatened given that HIV/Aids mostly affects the economically productive group � 21 to 49 years of age � which forms more that 75 per cent of the formal sector workforce.
Businesses are adversely affected by HIV/Aids in two ways: First, through costs incurred internally and secondly, through costs emanating from the market and business environment.
The first category includes decreased labour productivity occasioned by increased absenteeism, increased staff turnover, loss of skills, loss of tacit knowledge and declining morale.
The second category comprises of increased staff costs, including insurance cover, retirement funds, health and safety, medical assistance, testing, counselling and funeral costs.
In a survey of commercial firms in Kenya by UNAids, illness and death have replaced old age as the leading reason for employees to leave service. One of the sampled companies had 43 deaths reported in 1998. Out of these, 50 per cent were as a result of Aids.
The effects of the epidemic also result in reduced savings and disposable income of the population, occasioned by illness, homecare demands and higher expenditure on institutional health care. In addition, there is loss of investment (social and economic) and
termination of future earnings due to premature death.
Likewise, there is substantial community contribution to care for the sick leading to reduced spend on business-generated goods and reduced business transactions.
In almost all cases, the opportunity cost to community care providers is never recognised and yet this results in the providers being unavailable to engage in productive activities, including joining the labour market.
All these lead to shrinking market size, especially for non-essential goods and services and reduction of resources available for production and investment. This is a recipe for declining economic growth and more problems for government, business, families and the community at large.
The reality of Kenyaĺs workforce profile, a mirror image of the national profile discussed above, makes it imperative for businesses to realise that there is a case for concerted effort to address HIV/Aids within and around the work environment. This would supplement the efforts of the government and the civil society.
Despite the grim results, very few businesses in the region have attempted to determine the effects of HIV/Aids on them now and in the future.
PricewaterhouseCoopers is in the process of conducting The 2003 Human Resources Survey that will, among other things, attempt to find out what effort businesses are making to bring HIV/Aids issues to the boardroom.
Because HIV/Aids has negative impact on businesses and employees, there is merit for business to put in place measures to protect the workforce and their families.
Businesses can address HIV/Aids issues through collective actions and through individual business efforts. These can be channelled through fora that have been formed for purposes of addressing HIV/Aids and business. In Kenya the most significant such forum is The Kenya HIV/Aids Private Sector Business Council.
Individual businesses can develop a two-pronged strategy. The first strategy would be aimed at prevention. It is now common knowledge that Kenya has already achieved more than 90 per cent of HIV/Aids awareness level. It is also generally agreed that this level of awareness has not been sufficiently translated to behaviour change. There is therefore room for businesses to focus on workplace programmes so as to address that environment where most workers spent up to 10 hours of their day.
Some of the programmes' benefits include breaking communication barriers, reducing stigma and providing avenues for sharing information. This would lead to a better appreciation of what HIV/Aids is and how its effects can be reduced among the staff and families.
The second strategy would involve curative measures. Given the profile of Kenyaĺs workforce, it is highly likely that a business with 100 employees will have at least 10 members of staff who are infected. Taking advantage of falling prices of Aids management drugs (antiretrovirals), some businesses have introduced these interventions and are beginning to realise benefits in the form of skills retention and stable productivity levels. Critical to these interventions is for employees to know their HIV/Aids status.
However, it is highly unlikely that these kinds of programmes will succeed unless they are supported and championed from the boardroom. Because the effects of HIV/Aids hurt the centre of businesses � growth and profit, efforts to address them need to be accelerated to the strategy level where they become the responsibility of the management and the Board of Directors.
At the centre of this, businesses should take every opportunity to positively engage the government and positively critique the strategy that is in place to coordinate the fight against HIV/Aids in Kenya.
Mr Kitheka is a manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers
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