These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: Own the problem, own the solutions.
    Author: Decosas J.
    Journal: AIDS Anal Afr; 1994; 4(3):12-3. PubMed ID: 12318856.
    Abstract:
    The question of which sector should lead the response to AIDS comes down to control of budgets and control of staff. The insistence on the national and international level that AIDS is a health issue has prevented other sectors to become motivated to address AIDS. When a public health official promotes a multisectoral strategy, the manager in the ministry of agriculture views it as an outsider wanting to come in to his area of control and expense. This is a normal and accepted bureaucratic survival behavior, which government departments reward. This behavior occurs less often in the commercial sector. Industry in Sub-Saharan Africa responded faster to HIV than did relevant government ministries. However, it tends to not plan far enough ahead to incorporate the effects of HIV soon enough to prepare for the AIDS epidemic. The 2 leading obstacles to effective multisectoral programming in AIDS are the very slow pathogenesis of HIV and the political and financial dimensions of intellectual ownership of the discourse on HIV. To move beyond these barriers, the health sector must relinquish the claim of ownership. Since many careers, government departments, and an international organization with a multimillion dollar budget are based on this ownership, it will not be easy for the health sector to stop working with HIV issues. A mechanism needs to be created so government ministries can collaborate. Ministry officials in Uganda find the word coordination too strong and threatening. The public health meaning of control is different from that of nonhealth sectors. We need to establish sectoral cohabitation at the intergovernmental level. The international donor community needs to stop sending international specialists and to encourage African countries to learn from each other. Counterparts from other African governments should help African government officials. Even though African governments now know they own the problem of HIV, they need to know that they can also own the solutions.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]