The Apparel Lesotho Alliance to Fight AIDS (ALAFA) is an industry-wide programme that is reaching out to more than 40 000 apparel workers and their families. It is a public-private partnership driven by an alliance between the Lesotho government, donors, international brands, employee and employer representatives and service providers.

Alafa means "to care for the sick" in Sesotho, the language spoken in Lesotho.

History

Regional development agency ComMark Trust was providing technical assistance to the apparel industry in Lesotho until it closed at the end of 2009. In 2005 ComMark received funding from the UK's Department for International Development (DFID) to design a strategy to address HIV and AIDS in the industry. ALAFA was born in the course of that process.

The organisation is motivated by humanitarian concerns and the need to make the industry sustainable in the long term. It is working both to reduce the HIV-infection among the workers and provide care and support for those infected and their families. It was launched in Maseru in May 2006.

A WORKPLACE MODEL FOR FIGHTING HIV AND AIDS

ALAFA has spearheaded a public-private partnership model that includes both investment and delivery of services. This award-winning model has demonstrated that is possible to protect key economic sectors in poor countries from the ravages of HIV and AIDS. It is a potential working model for sectors where there is a concentrated workforce or across sectors where companies work out of a contained area such as an industrial site.

Much of ALAFA's success lies in it having taken HIV and AIDS services to the workplace. When sectors of industries co-ordinate and pool their resources to protect their workforce, this yields faster results than when companies run their own programmes. 

Success factors include sustained management support, financing for service delivery gaps, an enabling environment created by the government, and willingness by private providers to innovate.

ALAFA's model has been tested and validated, and presents an efficient approach and new benchmark toward mitigating the impact of HIV and AIDS on livelihoods and industrial productivity. Replication of this model is being initiated in Swaziland, and other countries in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region will follow later in 2010 subject to funding.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The project is managed by a core staff of 15 people in Maseru, under the control of a management board.  An advisory council brings together the interests of the ministries of health, trade, labour and industry, donors, the National AIDS Commission, international brands, employees and employer representatives, and service providers.

Management Board: This committee is tasked with the hiring of project staff and the constant monitoring of the project staff's activities.

Project Advisory Council: The council includes industrial associations, labour unions, brands and retailers, donors, multinational organisations and representatives of the three relevant government ministers and the National AIDS Commission. Members approve budgets and policies, report on the project to stakeholders, and guide the project director and team. The PAC meets at least twice a year.

FUNDING

Funding is assured through the brands (EDUN, Wal-Mart, Gap Inc., Levi Strauss and retailer Nordstrom), bilateral donors (DFID and Irish Aid) and multilateral donors (European Commission). Workers on treatment also pay a small amount for treatment and the factory owners are assisting with setting up and staffing factory clinics. Lesotho's ministry of health and social welfare is supplying the private doctors with antiretroviral drugs at no cost and also helps in other ways such as seconding counsellors to the factory clinics.

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT

Moores Rowland-Lesotho has been appointed as the project auditors.