Working Group on Social and Political Aspects
of AIDS in Uganda
Background to the Working Group on Social and Political Aspects of AIDS in Uganda:
Improving access to ARVs has become officially a global priority, in contrast to conventional wisdom that ARV therapies would remain beyond the reach of most HIV positive people in poor countries. However, access requires more than just drugs. In African countries, access to ARVs is bound together with important questions about the relationship between civil society, for-profit pharmaceutical companies, international donors and lenders and African states. The ‘Living and working with HIV/AIDS’ project has brought together Ugandan and Nordic colleagues from diverse social science disciplines to analyze the unfolding of one of Africa’s most ‘successful’ AIDS treatment programs.
The importance of linking research-based discussions with the policy makers, donors, and service providers in AIDS treatment was stressed. Successful collaboration at the district levels by the TORCH project has taken place for more than a decade. Also, in the Kampala AIDS network of government, donors, and NGOs, researcher-practitioner collaboration has taken place. This includes a workshop held at CHDC at the initiation of the ARV roll-out in the country (2004) and a pair of workshops held in Denmark and Sweden with the collaboration of Ugandan and Scandinavian-based researchers (supported by AIDSNET, NAI and RUC).
The proposed working group on the social and political aspects of AIDS in Uganda would draw on the successful collaborations of previous work and the experience of both the Danish-based and the Ugandan-based researchers.
An exploratory working group meeting was held at the Child Health and Development Centre (CHDC), Makerere University, Kampala on 20 August 2007 and concluded that there is considerable interest in continuing and expanding research collaboration on social and political aspects of AIDS and its treatment in Uganda.
The August working group meeting was attended by 11 full-time researchers, Ugandan and foreign-based. All are doing current work on non-biomedical aspects of AIDS treatment in Uganda. Additionally numerous other researchers were identified, based in Uganda and elsewhere, as potential contributors to a working group.
For more information, contact:
Lisa Ann Richey, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of International Development Studies
Dept. of Society and Globalisation
Roskilde University
Bldg. 8.2 P.O.Box 260 DK 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
+ 45 46742005 direct + 45 46742627
Email:richey@ruc.dk
Jenipher Twebaze
Coordinator
Child Health and Development Centre, Makerere University
P.O Box 6717, Kampala, Uganda
Tel: +256-414-541684/530325,
Fax: +256-414-531677,
E-mail:jennipher@chdc-muk.com
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