Due to its rapid spreading, AIDS has been declared a global epidemic. Especially sub-Saharan Africa has been the most affected by the epidemic. South Africa is no exception to the devastating impact of the epidemic. Over the past few years, HIV-prevention initiatives have been underway on a full scale in an effort to combat the destructive powers of the epidemic in the country. These initiatives appear to have adopted a health-belief approach in their strategies to decrease HIV-infections. This approach to HIV-prevention assumes that the desired behavior change, namely increasing safe sexual practices and decreasing high-risk HIV/AIDS behavior, can be achieved through rational decision-making based on knowledge of the disease and its consequences. The findings of the studies on sexual behavior and HIV/AIDS such as KAPB (knowledge, attitudes, practice and beliefs) studies appear to reaffirm the fact that knowledge alone is neither sufficient nor effective in bringing about the appropriate behavior change to combat HIV/AIDS. These studies point towards a high level of knowledge about AIDS in the general population, yet the ever increasing infection rate remains undeterred. The ANC came to power in 1994 after 10 years of National Party inaction with regard to AIDS. The National AIDS plan, endorsed by incoming minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, was insufficiently informed by the institutional and social realities of South Africa. Like other policy blueprints of this period, it over-estimated the economic, and especially human, resources at the disposal of incoming government. Moreover, this avowedly multi-sect oral HIV/AIDS plan, designated a “presidential lead project”, was situated in a national department of health in the throes of transformation. Because health is in part a provincial prerogative, AIDS was vulnerable to further administrative obstruction in a second tier of bureaucracy from the previous regime. Competing claims on resources in the poorer provinces, the demands of administrative reconfiguration, and very uneven provincial capacity, further undermined implementations.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:28202 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Mnguni, Grace |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Management and Commerce |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, Degree |
| Format | 105 leaves, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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