Poverty & Social Development: A Caribbean Perspective

Corporate Policies as Tools for Change: Jamaica and the fight against HIV/AIDS
No efforts can be spared when it comes to the implementation of advocacy strategies, and learning in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. And the collaboration and formulation of a corporate and business response to this pandemic is another step forward to bridge certain gaps, and look for the involvement of communities and institutions to address this issue as a matter of national urgency.
By stressing the role of the private sector in the fight against HIV/AIDS, we can have an approach that moves beyond projections about the impacts of this disease on workers’ productivity and cost of labor to embrace a broad and comprehensive framework gearing toward the dissemination of accurate and up-dated information, training programs, awareness campaigns or guidelines about HIV/AIDS through the support of corporate policies to strengthen the impacts of behavioral change programs.

In Jamaica these perspectives have not been left behind, as recent calls have been made to rally corporations and streamline these actors with policies taking into account matters of learning, education and community involvement about the disease. However, despite huge challenges ahead the engagement of various stakeholders are being called upon to counter the impacts and effects of discrimination, stigmatization against people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA); where the formulation of corporate policies are viewed as change mechanisms to steer leadership and accountability toward community development and support for public policy and health advocacy schemes, see (here).