AFRO-NETS> Reducing the impacts of food insecurity and HIV/AIDS - a collective failure?

[Manju Chatani - HDN <manju@hdnet.org>]

Reducing the impacts of food insecurity and HIV/AIDS - a collective failure?
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HDN Key Correspondent Team (3 June 2002)

NOW: Southern Africa's worst food shortage in a decade is spreading 
across at least six countries: Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swazi-
land, Zambia & Zimbabwe.

NOW: The HIV/AIDS epidemics in those six countries are among the most 
severe the world has ever seen.

Have we learned nothing about the linkages between food insecurity, 
vulnerability to HIV and the impact of HIV/AIDS on rural livelihoods 
and agricultural production?

NOW ... IS ALREADY TOO LATE to put food insecurity and HIV/AIDS on 
the agenda.

With one week until the World Food Summit (Rome 10-17 June, 2002) and 
one month before the International AIDS Conference (Barcelona, 7-12 
July 2002) we need to urgently determine what we know and what we 
need to know about these interactions, and to accelerate towards 
genuine action to mitigate against the common impacts of food short-
ages and HIV/AIDS. These two conferences must lead to concrete steps 
in this critical priority area.

 Unbelievably, with the response to HIV entering its third decade, 
and as another severe food shortage unfolds, one of our most enduring 
questions is how the vicious cycle between food insecurity and 
HIV/AIDS impact and vulnerability can be understood and broken.

Research on the impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture, rural development, 
nutrition, food security and rural poverty has been carried out. Un-
raveling the interaction between them has been problematic because of 
the institutional frameworks that have seen food security as being 
worlds apart from the biomedical paradigm that has - and still does - 
characterize the way we have thought of AIDS to date.

Simply repeating the mantra that "AIDS is a development issue as well 
as a health issue" is clearly not enough. We now know what that kind 
of lip-service has achieved. The current food shortages in Southern 
Africa are without doubt partly attributable to the impact of the 
HIV/AIDS epidemics in these countries. They are a stark demonstration 
of the collective failure to recognize - and act upon - the deep-
rooted linkages between food insecurity and HIV/AIDS.

The food and HIV/AIDS sectors seem to have finally woken up to the 
crucial importance of working together. Hence recent efforts by the 
'food agencies' - such as the Food and Agriculture Organisation 
(FAO); the World Food Programme (WFP); and International Fund for Ag-
ricultural Development (IFAD) to carve out collaboration agreements 
with the 'AIDS' agencies, including the Joint UN Programme on AIDS 
(UNAIDS) and to a lesser extent the World Health Organization (WHO). 
The agencies are working towards a common analytical framework for 
mitigation responses to the epidemic.

But what is this achieving? There remain gaping knowledge gaps and a 
lack of operational collaboration between these agencies. Apart from 
small-scale initiatives, organised mostly by nongovernment organisa-
tions and local community groups, there are very few examples of suc-
cessful approaches to reducing the impact of HIV/AIDS and food secu-
rity on one another. Even in countries with exemplary AIDS programmes 
or agricultural sector strategies, national plans to help reduce 
these impacts are almost non-existent.

To understand these gaps is not to excuse the obvious lack of atten-
tion this issue has received. This must especially be the case when 
we consider the fragile food security of the 40 million people living 
with HIV today, and that of the twenty million men, women and chil-
dren who have already died from AIDS-related conditions. We must also 
focus on the food insecurity and HIV vulnerability of the people of 
six countries with among the most severe HIV epidemics AND now the 
consequences of a harvest failure that was foreseen and documented 
months ago.

The unfolding food shortage in Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swazi-
land, Zambia & Zimbabwe will increase the vulnerability of millions 
of their people to HIV. At the same time, the personal, household and 
community impacts of HIV/AIDS are already fanning the flames of food 
insecurity.

As part of HDN's pre-conference collaboration with the Barcelona Con-
ference organizers, we shall do what we can to facilitate this dia-
logue - making the INTAIDS eForum available for these discussions and 
exchange of information, and by summarizing and posing searching 
questions.

But the real resources are with you - community organizations, people 
living with HIV, government officers, those working in the 'food' and 
'AIDS' sectors. Sharing your knowledge and understanding is the only 
way we can move rapidly and together towards a greater understanding 
of what should be done and how, and the opportunities that exist to 
make that happen.

If you have something to say about the relationship between food in-
security and HIV/AIDS, their impacts on one another, or approaches to 
reduce them, then let's hear from you. Maybe you know of small-scale 
approaches that are working and might be replicated elsewhere? Or you 
may be in a position to explain why institutional collaboration and 
new policies in the area are vital? Whatever your perspective, sug-
gestions about practical ways the HIV/AIDS-related impact of the cur-
rent food shortage in southern Africa might be mitigated are particu-
larly welcome.


HDN Key Correspondent Team
Email: correspondents@hdnet.org


******************

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The INTAIDS eForum is provided free of charge to all users, and ar-
chives of discussions can be read at: http://www.hdnet.org

Other links:

FAO/World Food Summit plans: http://www.fao.org
WFP:  http://www.wfp.org
IFAD: http://www.ifad.org

This discussion has been organized as part of the preparations for 
the International AIDS Conference, to be held in Barcelona, 7-12 July 
2002.
To visit the web site of the conference, go to:
http://www.aids2002.com/IE_Home.asp

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