Public Policy Lessons from the AIDS Response in Africa examines how the interplay between national state dynamics in Africa and the global political arena has shaped the global AIDS response, and in this context develops a framework for analysing public policy action more broadly in contemporary Africa. By applying comparative political sociology to AIDS public action, this book identifies four political models that are applicable to public initiatives. Fred Eboko goes on to test these in other domains – namely, the malaria and tuberculosis health subsectors, and the education and environment sectors. By articulating global and national connections and contributing a critical perspective grounded in African scholarship and French political science, the author builds a bold and ambitious framework with the potential to enable coherent and effective public policy action in Africa. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of public health, global health, political science, and development studies, as well as policy-level practitioners in the areas of global health and development.

We began to research for this book in 2000, with the idea that we might contribute to the search for solutions to the global HIV/AIDS pandemic by c- bining perspectives from different disciplines. Much has happened in the interv- ing years. First, the severity of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa – and the threat it posed for many others regions of the world – led to a movement among several countries to correct the imbalance between producers and users of ph- maceutical products. This effort produced a clarification of the right of gove- ments to produce generic medicine under compulsory licenses and an amendment of the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Agreement to allow exports of generic medicines from one WTO Member to another. In 2007, the amended rules were put into practice, with Canada authorizing the export of generic antiretroviral drugs to Rwanda. However, at the same time, global patent laws have been undermined due to regulatory capture, most notably in free trade agreements and through political pressure on countries like Thailand to not to exercise their right to issue compulsory licenses for pharmaceutical products. Second, the amount of money available for the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS has increased dramatically, with the establishment of the World Bank Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program for Africa (MAP), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), among other funding initiatives.

HIV/AIDS is a catastrophe globally but nowhere more so than in sub-Saharan Africa, which in 2008 accounted for 67 percent of cases worldwide and 91 percent of new infections. The Institute of Medicine recommends that the United States and African nations move toward a strategy of shared responsibility such that these nations are empowered to take ownership of their HIV/AIDS problem and work to solve it.

AIDS has a unique political history. As fears grew of a global pandemic on the scale of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa, AIDS was briefly treated as an issue of high politics in the international arena and generated significant resources for country programmes. That initial commitment is now declining, and if AIDS is to maintain its visibility and contribution to global solidarity, human rights and dignity, its politics will have to evolve to reflect the profound geo-political, economic and social transformations underway today. This volume brings together leading scholars from a variety of disciplines who work at the intersection of politics and HIV. They reflect on the lessons learned from the past thirty years of the politics of AIDS and how political science, writ large, can further contribute to the understanding and practice of political mobilization around AIDS. Through case studies and analysis, new insights into identity politics and social movements in countries as diverse as Brazil, Switzerland, Vietnam and Zambia are offered alongside new approaches to understanding the determinants and incentives which generate political will and commitment. This book was published as a special issue of Contemporary Politics.

This book analyzes successive governments' management of the AIDS epidemic in South Africa. The book covers the years 1982-2005, using expert thinking regarding public policy making to identify gaps in the public sector's handling of the epidemic. It highlights critical lessons for policy makers and other public health managers.

This book is for students and scholars studying political economy, public policy, and global health, and all those who are interested in knowing how ordinary Africans think about the response to the AIDS epidemic. It studies the divergent priorities of donors and citizens in response to AIDS intervention in Africa.

The AIDS epidemic in Sub-Saharan Africa continues to affect all facets of life throughout the subcontinent. Deaths related to AIDS have driven down the life expectancy rate of residents in Zambia, Kenya, and Uganda with far-reaching implications. This book details the current state of the AIDS epidemic in Africa and what is known about the behaviors that contribute to the transmission of the HIV infection. It lays out what research is needed and what is necessary to design more effective prevention programs.