[afro-nets] David and Goliath

[Edward Green <EGreendc@aol.com>]

David and Goliath
-----------------

Thanks to Patrick Mbindy for his comments, esp.

 > "once a regulation has been in place for some time, an industry
 > will evolve in such a way that its leading firms become politi-
 > cal defenders of that regulation. (Milgrom and Roberts, 1990 in
 > Alt and Alesina 1996, pg 651)."
 >

The dominant AIDS prevention paradigm supports a billion-dollar
industry that has grown up around condoms, drugs and testing. It
asserts that an African cannot prevent AIDS without using a
medical product, preferably one from America or Europe. Every
time someone slams ABC (namely the A&B components) as unrealis-
tic, impossible, simplistic, unworkable in Africa, or irrelevant
to a 13 year old girl forced into marriage, the AIDS industry
and all who benefit from it are delighted, because hegemony
seems likely to prevail.

The Uganda model, by contrast, says that Africans and others can
prevent AIDS without necessarily requiring medical products.
They can prevent AIDS for free (from the individual's view-
point). I guess classic political economy theory would predict
that the upstart Uganda model will be crushed like a bug! I say:
All power to the upstarts in Africa!

(Remember: my position is that both approaches are useful, the
billion-dollar industry and the free one. CNN states that there
is no role for free behavior change, at least in the form of ab-
stinence and faithfulness. I debated the CNN position in Bangkok
and so I know what the bottom line is: NO A or B, except maybe
in theory. But NO money should go to A or B interventions. If
you check the newspaper accounts of that debate, the Uganda ABC
model defenders were described as "vastly outnumbered" by the
industry folks).

Edward Green
mailto:egreendc@aol.com