The business community is not immune to AIDS. Companies with workforces in heavily affected regions face a clear and urgent threat. Their employees, in the prime of their lives and the main family breadwinners, are being disproportionately infected. AIDS threatens the opportunities for companies looking to expand into new middle-income markets such as Brazil, South Africa, China, and India.

Under its President and Chief Executive Officer, Richard Holbrooke, and with startup support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Open Society Institute, and the UN Foundation, the Global Business Coalition (GBC) has increased its membership from 17 to over 70 international companies in the last 12 months and has begun an ambitious program of outreach and policy leadership to increase dramatically the involvement of the business sector.

Major multinational companies that have now joined the GBC include American Express, AOL Time Warner, Barclays Bank, Fanny Mae, Hewlett-Packard, Lafarge, McKinsey & Co, and Viacom. GBC membership from the oil and energy industry includes BP, Chevron Texaco, Exxon Mobil, and Shell. The GBC has also attracted strong business representation from regions hard hit by HIV/AIDS. South African companies include First Rand Bank, Metropolitan, and Old Mutual, as well as many of the region's mining companies, including Anglo American, Anglo Gold, Anglo Vaal, and De Beers. The GBC has also made India a key priority in conjunction with the Confederation of Indian Industry, with Indian membership now extending to Modicare, RRR Industries and Tata Iron & Steel.

GBC announced a new Chairman on June 12 at the Awards for Business Excellence in New York. Juergen Schrempp, Chairman of the Board of Management DaimlerChrysler AG, has now assumed the role held previously by William H Roedy, President of MTV Networks International, since 2000. On June 12, the GBC also officially announced that it had changed its name to the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, reflecting the growing momentum behind the business response to HIV/AIDS and the increasing number of companies joining the GBC.

Prioritizing Action in the Workplace

Besides increasing the number of companies committed to HIV/AIDS, the GBC's first priority is to promote greater business action on AIDS in the workplaceÑparticularly by those companies operating in heavily affected regions in the world. The most pressing challenge for businesses operating in these countries is to protect their own workforce through comprehensive HIV workplace programs that cover both prevention and care. The intention is not to develop potential "alternative" public health systems that cover an entire country. Rather, business leadership has the potential to catalyze greater government and donor commitment to improve provision of local HIV healthcare.

The GBC is documenting examples of good comprehensive HIV workplace action by businesses; it is also advising individual companies. At the XIVth International Conference on AIDS in Barcelona, the GBC presented its "Workplace Protocols and Practices," which collates and describes in detail successful company programs from resource-limited settings from around the world.

Business Know-How to Strengthen National AIDS Responses

Business often has the capacity to act faster and more effectively than any other sector. The business sector's ability to create and exploit new opportunities could significantly improve the design and implementation of existing HIV strategies. For example:

*    Communications and marketing skills could improve national behavior change programs.

*    Business management and training techniques could improve the administration and efficiency of AIDS organizations.

*    Logistics expertise and distribution infrastructure could strengthen the reach of information and commodity distribution to hard-to-reach regions.

This new approach to corporate responsibility could be a major sustainable contribution that the business sector can make in the fight against AIDS. The GBC is identifying opportunities and examples to promote greater action in this field, and presented the first phase of this review at the XIVth International Conference on AIDS in Barcelona.