Political Leadership in South Africa: HIV

This case describes the rapid scale-up of South Africa’s national HIV/AIDS response from 2009 until 2015.  After providing background on apartheid, the impact of HIV/AIDS denialism, and an overview of the health system in South Africa, the case follows Minster of Health Aaron Motsoaledi’s leadership of the national department of health’s HIV/AIDS program. The case highlights how Motsoaledi and his team leveraged expertise and resources from domestic and international organizations to support ambitious testing and treatment goals. It focuses on Motsoaledi’s communication strategies and the factors that influenced his planning and implementation decisions. The case ends with Motsoaledi considering how to advance the national HIV/AIDS program amid larger health system issues, including overcrowding and limited monitoring capacity.

Learning Objectives: A productive class discussion will allow students to appreciate how politics can shape the trajectory of an epidemic; the importance of leveraging existing resources to scale services in a public health system; the challenges of transitioning from an emergency response to a sustainable public program; and the competing interests of a vertical intervention program and the complex health system within which it operates.

The Global Health Delivery (GHD) Project, an interdisciplinary collaboration between Harvard Business School, Harvard Medical School, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, investigates the management decisions behind disease treatment and prevention globally. The Global Health Delivery (GHD) Case Collection is a set of teaching case studies that are available for all at no cost online through Harvard Business Publishing, GHDonline, and The Case Centre.