BY MICHAEL EBOH

Access Bank Plc and Friends for the Global Fund Africa (Friends Africa)have commenced the training of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, SMEs, in Nigeria, empowering them to develop policies that will help reduce the negative effect of deadly diseases on their activities and bottom line.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Access Bank/Friends Africa Workplace Development Policies Workshop for SMEs, Ms Omobolanle Babatunde, Head, Corporate Social Responsibility, Access Bank, said the need to train the SMEs was borne out of the need to empower Nigerian companies with the necessary tools to address HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, ATM.

According to her, the expected outcomes of the workshop are accessibility and knowledge in the workplace of treatment and prevention programmes in Africa, increased engagement of private sector in address AIDS, TB and Malaria and reduced stigmatization as relates to HIV/AIDS.

She lamented the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Africa, especially in the society, government, organizations, communities and families, noting that the diseases are no longer viewed as health problems but as part of a broader development crisis.

Business, she emphasized, can no longer afford to ignore the reality that Africa is home to the world’s fastest-growing and youngest-hitting HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria pandemics. “These diseases are issues very close to business and very close to everyone living and working in Africa. We are all affected by the epidemic in some way, at our workplace and in our private lives,” she asserted.

Babatunde noted that the diseases pose serious negative social and economic consequences, especially as they have helped in no small measure in undermining the productive capacities of countries in Africa. She further stated that the diseases have helped in perpetuating poverty in the continent, aggravating social problems, overwhelmed health services weaken the work force of the private and threaten national security.

“It is our responsibility therefore, as the private sector to take action and join forces with the public sector in addressing these pandemics,” she noted.

Speaking in the same vein, Mrs. Akudo Ikemba, Chief Executive Officer/Founder, Friends Africa, highlighted the fact that to scale back the diseases and propel Africa into the 21st century, there is the need for stakeholders to possess the understanding of prevention, detection and treatment of the diseases.

According to her, African businesses benefit the most from a healthy Africa, as they have a larger, more affluent market to buy their products and from which to draw their employees. She chided the exclusion of SMEs in programmes aimed at eradicating the diseases and other economic issues, saying that focusing only on large companies would amount to ignoring the real drivers of economic growth and development.

She said, “The SMEs that I see before me, are the companies that create the food, the electricity, the building materials, the appliances that open the middle class and create wealth in Africa. “But to help these companies flourish, we must ensure that they have the tools available to sustain healthy businesses.”