AIDS and governance

Abstract

This volume addresses the effectiveness of global and national responses to HIV/AIDS as well as mapping out the contours of the crucial debate regarding the direction and scope for future governance. The global HIV/AIDS epidemic is a long-term event whose impact unfolds over many decades rather than months. Twenty-five years after seeing the first infection, the faces of the epidemic are increasingly the faces of women, especially young women; orphans who will have to grow up without the nurturing of parents; and the rising number of people living with HIV/AIDS. More worrying still, there is no convincing evidence to suggest that the epidemic is significantly slowing down anywhere in the world. The volume is divided into two parts. Chapters in the first part of the book map the nature and forms of impacts of AIDS on governance. The impact is explored in respect of key areas of political and economic life; including education, health, security, democratic accountability and representation. Although attempts at countering the impact of HIV/AIDS have been made through reforms of state organization, multiple factors, such as ownership, existing capacities and unintended consequences of reforms may aid or in the worst case jeopardize the overall national strategies of fighting HIV/AIDS. These are the themes of the chapters in the second part of this volume.