Paper long abstract:

$10 billion goes to fight HIV/AIDS annually. This money has been accompanied by the introduction of quasi-governmental bodies, a mushrooming of civil society actors and high-level political commitments of states and international agencies. This paper argues that the multiplicity of actors involved in the HIV/AIDS response, their competing demands and desired outcomes has led to a re-modelling of the state in East Africa. This re-modelling has seen the establishment of donor-positioned governmental bodies at the height of the response; the introduction of civil society as key to the service economy; and an embedded dependency upon international aid. Crucially, the global context of decision-making implies that the reconfiguration of the state may not be limited to East Africa as global commitments have witnessed a significant increase in uptake by states throughout the world.

This paper does the following. First, it highlights the key elements of the global response to HIV/AIDS. Second, it demonstrates how these key factors have led to change within state governance and power within East Africa. Third, the paper shows how such change could be transposed to wider states and the implications this has upon understandings of the influence of international decision-making and global governance