Corporate citizenship, aids and Africa: Lessons from bristol-myers squibb company’s secure the future™

The title of Alan Paton’s South African novel, Ah, But Your Land is Beautiful, reflects the common impression of most visitors and residents as they travel across the widely differing terrains of sub-Saharan Africa. As the story tells, however, the beauty is often eclipsed by the evidence of human suffering, social injustices, environmental degradation and exploitation of resources exerted by ever-changing political elites. Today’s South Africa and its neighbouring states are living on the foundations of this history, some with constitutions barely ten years old. Infrastructure and economic development were fostered within the urban and suburban centres allowing the rural areas with the majority of the population to remain in living conditions of decades past. The economic and human resources in southern Africa remain strong, but generating future economic development that will correct some of the current human and ecological imbalances will require new social contracts with businesses and corporations. Historically in this region, governments and corporations have often worked against the civil, social and political rights of the majority of its citizens, and worker-corporate relations have been tense, leaving the majority of the population suspicious of corporations and their motives (Bauer and Taylor 2005).

Duke Scholars

Author Michael H. Merson Medicine, General Internal Medicine