Interest groups in Zimbabwe and South Africa have urged SADC governments to support small- to medium-enterprise businesses (SMEs) as a way of helping to fight the spread of HIV and Aids along the region’s main transport corridors. Speaking during a workshop on HIV and Aids Prevention and Economic Empowerment along the Southern Africa Transport Corridors in Beit Bridge on Friday, the International Labour Organisation (ILO)’s chief technical adviser for Pretoria, Mr Joseph Ajakate, said the purpose of HIV and Aids Prevention and Economic Empowerment along the Southern Africa Transport Corridors was to complement SADC governments in the fight against the spread of the disease in the region. The region has the highest HIV and Aids prevalence rate in the world. “We are saying, through this programme, that we will be able to contribute in the fight against HIV and Aids in the Southern African region through the economic empowerment of vulnerable groups, which mostly include women, informal traders and truck drivers passing through the corridor within the region,” he said. Ajakate added that they were mainly targeting the transport sector, as most of the employees were vulnerable to HIV and Aids due to the nature of their work, which exposed them to sex workers operating along the corridor. “We want to assist entrepreneurs to access business services to improve their economic performances and the income of SMEs. We will thereby help reduce the spread of HIV and Aids and this strategy has worked very well in several other corridors in Africa. We are working with governments, employers, associations, NGOs and workers. We can address the challenge by economically empowering those vulnerable,” he said. He said there was a need to reduce the spread of HIV and Aids by creating employment and supporting SMEs operating along the corridors. “Poverty contributes to the spread of HIV and Aids and therefore it is imperative for SADC governments to established SMEs to address the unemployment problem in their respective countries." Stakeholders agreed that there was an urgent need to promote self-reliance in communities along the corridor through economic programmes as well as identifying key hot spots along the corridor where communities are most vulnerable to HIV infections. The project is currently being implemented in five countries. These are Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Malawi, South Africa and Mozambique. Ajakate said they were working in conjunction with various players in the transport sector. A policy document has since been developed.