“The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) was launched amid much pomp and praise in 2001, and promised to
usher in the economic emancipation of the continent and people of Africa. Nepad has been touted as the most important developmental initiative to come from Africa in the past two decades. However, despite its laudable intentions, Nepad in its current state arguably does not address the HIV/Aids pandemic adequately. Despite being the continent’s greatest threat to development, HIV/Aids is not presented as one of the priority areas in the Nepad document. The active fight against the pandemic has been left in the hands of the corporations and non-governmental
organisations (NGOs), without any active participation from the Nepad secretariat.The question that therefore arises out of this regrettable situation is whether Nepad can succeed in bringing about the delivery of the African continent out of economic
misery by pursuing policies which do not prioritise health. The study addresses some aspects of these concerns, using a twopronged
approach. The author examined the extent to which the Nepad initiative has supported moves to place HIV/Aids higher on the agenda, in order to improve human capacity and lead Africa into economic prosperity, as envisioned in the Nepad document and he assessed the efforts undertaken by South African corporations that have penetrated the African continent, to contribute to countering the spread of the pandemic.”
