Synergy in Social service provision: Embeddedness and Complementarity in Fighting HIV/AIDs in Uganda
Loading...
Date
2018
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Journal of Public Sector Development and Governance
Abstract
Uganda is among the countries that have managed
to control the spread of HIV/AIDS despite of the
high number of people living with HIV. Uganda is
observed to be on the right track towards achieving
the 90, 90, 90 Strategy by 2020 (Agaba 2018). The
90, 90, 90 Strategy is an ambitious treatment target
that was launched by UNAIDS and other partners. It
is aimed at diagnosing 90% of all people living with
HIV, provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 90% of
those diagnosed, and achieve viral suppression for
90% of those treated by 2020. Uganda has registered
success in a number of areas, including: reductions
in new infections by more than half in five years
from 135,000 in 2010 to approximately 60,000 by
2016, in men and women; in children from 26,000 in
2010 to 4000 in 2016, enrolling more than 1 million
people on care and support and about 980,954 on
antiretroviral therapy (Ministry of Health Uganda
2016; World Health Organisation (WHO) 2018). The
reasons why Uganda, a country perceived to be
poor, has been more successful in fighting HIV/AIDS
than countries such as South Africa and Botswana,
considered economically prosperous, remain a matter
of discussion. Countries have responded to HIV/AIDS
mitigation by providing information and upscaling
treatment and prevention. However, these have failed
to address the social, economic and power relations
which are responsible for individual risks of infection
and ability to protect themselves (Kharsany and Karim
2016). The prevalence of HIV among women in most
African countries, including Uganda, is higher than
that of men due to power relations. Women are unable
for example to negotiate consistent use of condoms
due to power relations between men and women.
Uganda’s success is also registered in being able to
create harmonious relations between various actors
engaged in the fight against HIV/AIDS, a relationship
that has been fundamental to Uganda’s success in
implementing HIV/AIDS policy programmes. Political,
social or structural factors play a role in differences
between countries about how policy is put into
practice (McRobie et al. 2017) and ultimately the
successes that may be registered in HIV prevention.
In this paper, we follow a framework of synergy which
looks at the relationship between society and state in
fighting HIV/AIDS. We perceive that Uganda’s success
story can be explained by the general framework of
synergy. The study uses secondary data on HIV/AIDS
prevention in Uganda.
Description
Keywords
Social service provision, Embeddedness, Complementarity, HIV/AIDs
Citation
Muriisa, R. K., & Rwabyoma, A. S. (2018). Synergy in social service provision: embeddedness and complementarity in fighting HIV/Aids in Uganda. Africa Journal of Public Sector Development and Governance, 1(1), 58-70.https://doi.org/10.55390/ajpsdg.2018.1.1.5