Stimulus
Text extract (adapted): "For years South Africa carried one of the world's heaviest HIV burdens while its government hesitated. In the early 2000s President Thabo Mbeki questioned whether HIV caused AIDS and delayed the public rollout of antiretroviral drugs, a stance that researchers later estimated cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Activists in the Treatment Action Campaign took the government to court and won a 2002 order to widen access to treatment. Two decades on, South Africa runs the largest antiretroviral programme on earth, with more than 5 million people on treatment, funded through a mix of its own health budget and external support such as the United States PEPFAR programme. Officials now describe treatment access less as a scientific question than as a test of political commitment."
(d) Evaluate the extent to which access to treatment depends more on domestic political will than on global funding.
Essay preview
Access to treatment depends on both domestic political will and global funding, but to different degrees at different stages of policy delivery. Political will can be defined as the sustained commitment of a government and its leadership to prioritise and implement a policy goal. Global funding refers to external finan