Building dynamic democratic governance and HIV‐resilient societies

HIV epidemics continue to spread around the world. Although most responses have emphasized medical approaches, the HIV and AIDS situation could be further improved by applying good governance principles. In analyzing national responses to HIV and AIDS from Brazil, Thailand, and Uganda, common factors consistent with democratic governance principles can be found. These factors are the strategic vision of political leaders, timely responses, strong and effective civil society participation, multisectoral mobilization, balancing prevention and treatment approaches, respecting human rights, and transparency. By building knowledge‐bases, advocating policy improvement and taking strategic actions for programmatic responses, countries in South‐East Asia have developed an Early Warning Rapid Response System which applies good governance principles for multisectoral actions in building HIV resilience. Engaging the construction sector to prevent HIV can ensure sustainable returns on economic investments. In mobilizing non‐health sectors such as agriculture and construction, broader strategic action programmes can be devised to complement the efforts of the health sector in mitigating socio‐economic crises aggravated by HIV and AIDS. The article concludes that the democratic governance approach is an essential option worth pursuing because it makes a critical contribution to reversing the relentlessly expanding trend of the HIV and AIDS pandemic.