World AIDS Day: from lifesaving medicine to fair markets for local suppliers
In a busy clinic on the edge of Accra, nurse Ama checks ARV stocks, test kits, gloves and disinfectant. During a donor project two years ago, the clinic started buying those gloves and disinfectants from Kofi, a young Ghanaian distributor working with a local manufacturer. Orders arrived on time, products were good, and costs dropped.
When the project ended, the donor team packed up, reports were written, and central procurement quietly went back to imported brands. Kofi’s business survived on a few private clients, but he never heard from that clinic network again.
Nothing dramatic happened. There was no scandal. But a small piece of local capacity slipped back into the shadows.
Global success, local blind spot
On paper, the global HIV response is a success story. UNAIDS and WHO guidelines, the 95-95-95 targets, funding from the Global Fund and PEPFAR, and national HIV plans across Africa have saved millions of lives.
Yet these frameworks say almost nothing about a simple question: who supplies the wider ecosystem of products and services around HIV care?
ARVs and test kits are rightly purchased through strict global and national systems. But around them sit dozens of “everyday” items:
- Gloves, disinfectants, dressings and antiseptics.
- Skincare and hygiene products for people with sensitive or compromised skin.
- Nutritional supplements and safe food products.
- Community-based adherence, home care and counselling services.
This is where African SMEs, cooperatives and community organisations can play a strong role, and often already do, but they are rarely visible to formal procurement.
How local suppliers fall out of the HIV response
Across the continent, a pattern repeats:
- Projects treat local players as temporary helpers. Youth groups, cooperatives and SMEs support HIV pilots and outreach, but are not positioned as long-term suppliers once the project closes.
- Evidence is buried in reports, not markets. The fact that “Kofi’s Supplies” successfully delivered to five ART clinics lives in a PDF, not in a live supplier directory that other clinics can search.
- Procurement defaults to what it knows. When in doubt, buyers go back to a handful of well-known importers, even when local options exist and have been field-tested.
- Regional opportunities are missed. A Liberian or Kenyan distributor that performs well in one country has no simple way to be discovered by clinics in neighbouring states.
It is the same pattern we describe as the “pilot trap”: promising work during a project, followed by silence.
Where OpenMarket Global fits
OpenMarket Global was built for exactly this gap between “great pilot” and “real market”. On the platform:
- A clinic distributor like Kofi can be listed as a verified Health or Medical supplier, with clear products, locations and WhatsApp contact.
- His profile can show which HIV or sexual and reproductive health projects he has supported, and in which districts, turning invisible work into visible track record.
- NGOs and ministries can search “gloves Ghana” or “disinfectant supplier Liberia” and see local options that have already been tested in real programmes.
Instead of ending with “we supplied X clinics during the project”, partners can say: “Here is the local supplier who did it, you can order from them too.”
What needs to change
World AIDS Day is a chance to ask who benefits economically from the HIV response, not only who receives treatment. Some practical shifts:
- Governments and AIDS councils: where safe and appropriate, reserve space for verified local suppliers of non-ARV health products in tenders; co-fund basic lab tests and quality checks for SMEs; and encourage procurement teams to use shared marketplaces, including OpenMarket Global, when scouting suppliers.
- NGOs and UN agencies: plan from day one how community groups and SMEs involved in HIV work will be listed as suppliers, not just thanked in reports. At project close, publish a simple supplier portfolio and link it to platforms that buyers already use.
- Businesses and cooperatives: capture your HIV-related work (who you supplied, where, with what results), invest in basic packaging and documentation, and use digital storefronts so clinics and NGOs can find you after grants end.
Call to action
Behind every treatment success is a chain of people and businesses who made it possible. This World AIDS Day, if you work in health, procurement, development or as a supplier, ask:
- Which local actors made your last HIV project work?
- Can anyone outside your team easily find and contract them now?
Your next choice of partner, platform or supplier could be the one that keeps someone like Kofi in the HIV response and not just for a year, but for a career.