Commentary, 1st - 5th December, 09

The country’s gross domestic product has not grown as expected in the past 20 years and the impact of HIV/AIDS has had a significant impact. For any economy to register meaningful growth there should be significant productivity in all sectors that contribute towards the national wealth.

Unfortunately, as the country grapples with the challenges of HIV/AIDS affecting various communities, the contribution of labour towards industrial development has been affected. For example, the output in agriculture has relatively reduced in the past two decades with HIV/AIDS posing the worst challenge.

Worse still, government resources cannot cope with the increasing needs for good health care, education for orphaned children and supporting various other highly vulnerable groups. In semi-urban areas, most breadwinners have died leaving behind them serious social problems to surviving families.

The government, donors and other non-governmental organizations with some support infrastructure can hardly sustain this growing demand for social investments. In the past two decades, it can be estimated well over K60 trillion has gone towards mitigating health care and social challenges associated with HIV/AIDS. In the same period, the country has lost well over K70 trillion worthy of contributions towards the GDP as a result of reduced productivity.

In real terms, HIV/AIDS has cost the country about K130 trillion since 1989. This figure does not include the hundreds of billions that families have had to sacrifice off their investment programs in order to respond to the negative social dynamics of HIV and AIDS. If this amount was realized and allocated to real economic investments, the country’s gross domestic product would be around K100 trillion per annum. It should further be noted that the higher the GDP, the higher the GDP rate in monetary terms. In others words, a 5 percent growth rate over K100 trillion is higher than a 5 percent growth rate over K50 trillion.

The HIV/AIDS scourge should be arrested by harnessing financial, human and other technical resources under a triangular relationship of government, donors and the business community, which includes households. We need to invest resources in tackling the vice so that the future generation does not grow with an economic stigma arising from low growth rates.

Donors in particular will need to continue supporting the health sector to give some breathing space to government which is currently inundated with various health financing challenges. The private sector should equally come up with financing initiatives that will mitigate the burden of supporting victims of HIV/Aids. Coming up with affordable health insurance schemes that cutter for those with low incomes would be a realistic way of supporting health care in Zambia.