“HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition insecurity are becoming increasingly entwined in a vicious cycle, with food insecurity increasing the risk of exposure to HIV, and HIV/AIDS in turn increasing vulnerability to food insecurity,” said Stuart Gillespie, Ph.D., a senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). Dr. Gillespie was speaking at IFPRI’s International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security, held last week in Durban, South Africa, immediately after the WHO Consultation on Nutrition and HIV/AIDS in Africa. ‘Food security’ means having sustained physical and economic access to food of an acceptable quality and quantity.
The IFPRI meeting bought together over two hundred development experts, policymakers, donors, and researchers from health, agriculture and other sectors to hear how HIV/AIDS is affecting food security (and visa versa). Hoping that participants would forge links across sectors, the ultimate goal of the conference was to catalyse effective, large-scale action addressing the interactions between HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition insecurity.
“This conference aims to shine a light on the interactions to figure out what they mean for programmes and policies related to agriculture, research and development and to collectively figure out ways to take this agenda forward,” said Gillespie, who was also the chief organiser of the event.
Rationale for the meeting
Central to the meeting was the theme that HIV/AIDS is not merely a medical problem with a simple medical solution. It is a multisectoral and developmental issue, affecting already struggling societies on many levels.
“Within the development community, HIV/AIDS is often viewed as only a health issue, separate from agriculture and other sectors. As a result, there is limited collaboration across sectors, resulting in lost opportunities to fight this pandemic effectively,” said Gladys Mutangadura, of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa at the opening press conference.
“HIV cannot be removed from Africa’s long-standing problems; it is the culmination of these problems. It cannot be divorced from all these inequalities,” and Professor Joseph Tumushabe, a development consultant for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
HIV/AIDS spreads through developing countries in the context of hunger, malnutrition, poor health, and deepening poverty. Those who contract the disease can find it more difficult to work to feed themselves and their families. As they fall ill, their resources are depleted; and they often lose their homes and other assets. The time and resources of their families and communities also must be redirected to their care and support. When a person with AIDS dies, their families are left even deeper in poverty and at greater risk of HIV exposure and infection themselves.
As a result, whole families are being wiped out and communities devastated. With as many as one out of three adults infected, the stability of entire nations is being put at risk.
Agriculture
“This disease is having disastrous consequences for agriculture by affecting adults at the height of their productive years, reducing labour power and other resources, and making it difficult for poor people to provide food for their families,” said Professor Tumushabe. But while rural agricultural communities are becoming poorer, they are often forced to care for a disproportionate number of the ill and dying.
“People go to the rural areas for care or to die, and many of the orphans are in the rural areas, but where is the funding?” said Professor Tumushabe. “It is not being equally distributed to the rural areas.”
Much of the conference would focus on what is known about the interaction between agriculture (and other rural livelihood systems) with the spread of HIV and effects of HIV/AIDS.
No one magic bullet
“We have a lot of evidence to suggest that those kinds of processes are happening — but they are almost always different in different places for different reasons,” said Gillespie. “We are finding that there is no one single clear-cut problem.”
Many of the papers presented at the conference discussed the capacities and strategies of households and communities to respond effectively to the impacts of HIV/AIDS.
“What are the appropriate types of solutions for that place, at that time?” said Gillespie. “There is no blueprint, there is no standard magic bullet intervention.”
“There is no one single solution, so we need to be capturing innovations, looking at how certain communities have effectively responded. And we have to learn from them where the gaps are and how government, civil society, the private sector and international agencies need to position themselves to provide the appropriate types of support” he concluded.
Resources
Gillespie S and Kadiyala S. HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security From Evidence to Action. International Food Policy Research Institute, 2005. Copies of this book and other related materials may be downloaded from the IFPRI site: www.ifpri.org