ALAFA stands for the Apparel Lesotho Alliance to Fight AIDS. It was launched in Maseru in May 2006 to provide prevention and treatment for the 46 000 mainly women Basotho workers in the textile and apparel industry, one third of whom are estimated to be infected with HIV.

ALAFA is an industry-wide programme providing education and prevention, voluntary testing and counselling and management of AIDS through the roll-out of health management and treatment for HIV-positive workers. The project is part of the move to make the Lesotho apparel industry more robust, and is evidence that it deserves its reputation as a socially responsible and ethical source of clothing.

By the middle of 2008, 38 000 textile industry employees (66 percent of the workforce) had access to ALAFA’s prevention services and 27 000 also had access to the care and treatment component of the programme.

ALAFA is honoured to have received the Drivers of Change Award 2008 in the business category. In presenting the award in Johannesburg on October 23, the judges said ALAFA had been chosen for "its innovative sector wide public-private partnership that is showing how possible it is to protect key productive economic sectors in poor countries from the ravages of HIV and AIDS".