Kabeba Muriisa, RobertsRwabyoma, Asasira Simon2023-02-062023-02-062018Muriisa, 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.2018.1.1.5https://doi.org/10.55390/ajpsdg.2018.1.1.5https://nru.uncst.go.ug/handle/123456789/7583Uganda 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.enSocial service provisionEmbeddednessComplementarityHIV/AIDsArticle