ABSTRACT
An estimated 4 million African women will die of AIDS by the year 2000. Rapidly increasing rates of HIV and AIDS in women should be viewed within the context of a steady socioeconomic decline of a region highly dependent upon primary modes of production in which they play key roles. The needed transition to the industrialization of Africa is threatened by unanticipated geopolitical upheavals which are ushering in changes in economic alliances. These portend a shift of assistance away from Africa and other Third World countries. The ability of women in the face of AIDS to sustain productive outputs may be critical to the success of strategies to avert further regional socioeconomic deterioration. The roles of women in reproduction and family care giving are equally crucial to the maintenance of the quality of life of the population. AIDS therefore poses a double crisis in that it also presages a reversal of trends made toward the improvement of the health of women in general. Socioeconomic development, on the other hand, could be adversely affected as a consequence of the diminished health status of African women. Challenging AIDS in Africa therefore calls for a broad approach in which the marginalization of women as well as their lack of provisions for sustaining their health are seen as dual, but interrelated, requirements that must both be addressed for the effective participation of women in the struggle to arrest the spread of the disease. A comprehensive strategy would include, as valid health concerns, the provision of family planning and structures of caring as well as AIDS/health education for prevention; it must also include mobilisation for the socioeconomic development of women; the end would be that the fight against AIDS through assured provisions for the protection of health would advance the overall socioeconomic development of women and the sub-Saharan Africa region as a whole.
