Panel 4. Kenya Invests in Its Future: Prevention for Government Workers

In most African countries the biggest employer is not any private company, but the government. In Kenya, a number of government agencies, confronting a future in which they will lose key employees and see pension costs rise, have begun to invest in prevention programmes.

One example comes from Thika, a district not far from the Kenyan capital Nairobi, in which a third of pregnant women are currently testing positive for HIV -- the highest rate in the country. Thika is home to Nairobi City Council's Ngethu water-processing plant. With the support of AMREF, a Nairobi-based NGO, the plant's management has recently trained workers to educate their colleagues about HIV prevention and care. Condoms and treatment for sexually transmitted infections are provided. The programme is doing well, and will probably be expanded to cover the 2,700 water department employees in Nairobi City.

Kenya's government has also begun HIV prevention initiatives among workers in the post office, the national tax collection agency, the ports authority and the police force.