Civil Society Capacity Building and the HIV/AIDS Pandemic

The starting point of this paper is that the potential for HIV/AIDS to structurally undermine gains in human well being is very real. Improvements in life expectancy are being slowed or reversed. Reproductive age groups are shrinking, creating demographic distortions that increase burdens on the old, on the young and on public services. Growing claims and increasing dissatisfaction with failure of public services – themselves not immune from the pandemic – and shrinking voter roles are undermining democracy and stability. countering this accumulating potential for disaster alongside so many other destabilizing factors is vital for moral and practical reasons and civil society has a pivotal role to play.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework and approach that could be used to develop strategies and interventions that address capacity building features of civil society that result from the HIV/AIDS pandemic in a comprehensive way.