Assignment Instructions
Conduct research on nonprofits that partnered with Africa to reduce AIDS/HIV during the second Bush administration. In 750-1,000 words, do the following:
- Explain how the nonprofits filled the need.
- Describe why nonprofits were able to fill the need when other entities were not able too.
- Describe the intended and unintended consequences of these partnerships.
- Use two to four scholarly resources to support explanation.
President Bush’s initiative on fighting the HIV/AIDS In Africa
For many years, HIV/AIDS affected many people in the world. The disease has been a cause of public health concern for many years. As much as the developed countries mounted rigorous campaigns that focused on the prevention and management of HIV/AIDS, many less developed countries lagged. Many countries in Africa are known to have remained behind in the fight against the disease. This led to the spread of the disease in most of these countries, and especially in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. President George Bush made it one of his main agendas to initiate programs aimed at containing and controlling the disease in the continent. This paper elaborates on the role that George Bush’s initiative played in this regard, as well as the role of non-profits in fighting HIV/AIDS in the continent.
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At the center of the addressing of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa was the lack of adequate funds to support essential programs. Many countries in the continent have long initiated programs directed at fighting the disease. However, the lack of sufficient resources has always frustrated the programs. George Bush’s program; President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, was a significant initiative created to combat HIV in Africa (Gray, 2017). This initiative worked in partnership with many non-profits that were interested in the same mission and vision. Most of the non-profits organizations that took and continue to take part in the fight against the disease in Africa have taken it upon themselves to ensure that they are well funded. Such foundations as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation focused on investing in preventive measures and public education on the same (Duncombe et al., 2015).
This was enabled by the foundation’s ability to mobilize funds from the founders’ businesses as well as partners. Other organizations like The Elton John AIDS Foundation and the Global Fund are non-profits that have contributed significantly to the fight of the epidemic in Africa. The two organizations directly funded government projects as well as running independent programs that support preventive as well as HIV/AIDS management measures. In the area of filling the need for research and dissemination of information focused on HIV/AIDS, UC San Diego’s Center for AIDS Research has made huge steps in researching on the subject and assisting governments in public education.
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Non-profits employed many strategies that made them more successful than other players in the fight against the HIV epidemic in Africa. One of the main strategies was the employment of measures aimed at specific elements of the epidemic. This includes focusing on the prevention of mother to child transmission, and the provision of sex education to vulnerable groups such as commercial sex workers and the youth. This focus on specific areas allowed the concerned non-profits to concentrate on those particular areas fully and therefore led to significant success overall. One of the non-profits that used this strategy is the Melinda and Bill Gates Foundation, which focused on the prevention of mother to child transmission. The non-profits also exhibited a high level of organization and planning, and this counted a lot in the success of their initiatives. Organizational capacity is an essential element in the running of any particular effort as it allows proper designing and implementation of objectives (Fowler, 2016). Another aspect that made non-profits to be successful was their ability to mobilize adequate funds to finance their projects. This was backed by exceptional management skills that allowed them to allocate funds to areas that would have maximum impact. All these factors came together to give non-profits an advantage of other bodies that attempted to play a part in the fight against the epidemic.
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A few significant unintended consequences arose from the partnerships of President Bush’s initiative with non-profits. One of the main ones is the perception that the initiative worked with organizations that were motivated by moral rather than health agenda. Such issues surrounded the fact that the organizations funded by the government’s initiative were made to pledge that they would promote measures that take the stand of abstinence-until-marriage. Another negative consequence that arose from the partnership was the fact that there existed substantial pay disparities between those employed by the programs in comparison with the salaries afforded to the same level of employees in their local countries (Agyemang et al., 2017). This was seen as not sustainable as they were not at par with local economies and therefore did not support local healthcare systems.
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In conclusion, it is clear that President Bush’s initiative on fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa had considerable success. This was made so by its ability to work with independent non-profit organizations that had similar targets maximally. These non-profits had various advantages that made them well-suited to play a central role in fighting the epidemic. These include their ability to mobilize funds; they possess significant organizational capacity, as well as the ability to focus on specific aspects of the epidemic for maximum impact. However, there were a few unintended consequences that came out of the partnerships. For example, the requirement that non-profits follow specific codes was seen as the Bush initiative administering loyalty oath to them.
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