Fighting HIV and AIDS: reconfiguring the State?

Abstract

US$10 billion goes to fight HIV and AIDS annually. This money has been accompanied by the introduction of quasi-governmental bodies, a mushrooming of civil society actors and high-level political commitments of states and international agencies. This article argues that the multiplicity of actors involved in the HIV and AIDS response has led to a re-modelling of the state in East Africa. Moreover, this re-modelling does not exist in isolation of wider trends within the global political economy, but is instead led by the World Bank as part of its wider governance reform agenda in which notions of sovereignty and partnership are challenged under the rubric of ownership. The article considers the role of the National AIDS Councils, the president, civil society and the Ministries of Health in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda within the World Bank's Multi-Country AIDS Program to explore this relationship.