Social Marketing in Health Promotion: Options for Sustainability in HIV/AIDS programmes

The purpose of this review was to assess the effectiveness of social marketing in HIV/AIDS programmes in developing nations and to provide recommendations for improvement which can be applied by Civil Society Organizations. The study was conducted as a desk review of documents on the effectiveness of global HIV programmes, largely accessed through online services. A review was similarly made of behaviour change campaigns in other disease programmes. Generally it was found that behaviour change programmes were most effective during implementation. The effectiveness of programmes tended to decline after programme withdrawal. One of the main reasons for this observed trend was poverty in relation to income access. Because most of the programmes reviewed were based in rural areas where agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, information was provided on how to sustain incomes through agricultural development for rural growth. The approach can also be applied to other industries such as small scale mining and general trade. The recommendations for sustaining programmes beyond the implementation period centered on the development of sustainable market access strategies for small holder farmers, this was mainly through their engagement in formal commercial value chains. Six principles were proffered to guide sustainable engagement, these were: a chain wide collaboration on shared goals; new market linkages; fair and transparent chain management; equitable access to services; inclusive innovations; measurement of outcomes. The author concluded that the improvement of income generation to sustain results of HIV and AIDS social marketing/behaviour change programmes is necessary.