Mobilising Brazil as 'Significant Other' in the Fight for HIV/AIDS Treatment in South Africa: the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and its global Allies

This chapter examines how a local South African HIV/AIDS NGO negotiated an emerging multipolar world and turned for inspiration and support to Brazil, a 'significant other' in the global fight against HIV/AIDS due to its early model for universal access to AIDS medication funded by the state. The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) mobilised the Brazilian government, NGOs like Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), and a host of activist organisations to ensure that ordinary South Africans could access life-saving medication. At the same time it meant to demonstrate to the South African government that a universal AIDS medication programme was a viable solution in South Africa also, even in resource-poor settings. In the process, the TAC became a valuable partner for Brazil and other global allies because it inspired the global campaign for treatment access and demonstrated how being locally rooted could be married with global action. Eventually Brazil, TAC, and others in the transnational activist HIV/AIDS network even managed to positively influence the Doha Declaration in terms of trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), which made it possible to distribute generic medication for public health emergencies.