Four Companies Pledge To Increase Involvement in HIV/AIDS Programs at GBC Meeting

Four companies -- BD, The Nike Foundation, Standard Chartered Bank and Accenture -- at a Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS meeting Monday in London pledged to increase their involvement in fighting HIV/AIDS, Reuters reports (Reuters, 5/22). BD pledged to donate $200,000 and become a partner in the Millennium Villages Project. The Nike Foundation pledged $200,000 to GBC's Healthy Women Healthy Economies program -- which supports women and girls through economic empowerment programs and provides access to HIV/AIDS treatment and services. Standard Chartered offered to provide banking services to main recipients of Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria grants, as well as include its executives on Global Fund Country Coordinating Mechanism committees. Accenture agreed to work with UNAIDS and other partners to help with developing a strategy to boost HIV prevention, treatment, support and care programs. In addition, several CEOs and executives of multinational companies called on leaders of the Group of Eight industrialized nations to implement the goals they agreed upon last year at their meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland (GBC release, 5/22). The business executives also discussed ways to raise money for the Global Fund for treatment and prevention programs (Che, All Headline News, 5/22).