The Best Defense against AIDS, In the Long Run, Will Be Economic

by Christina Scott , Inter Press Service, April 18, 2005

DURBAN, South Africa--If one wants to find out how AIDS is increasing hunger and malnutrition, one can expect to harvest an abundance of depressing information. But soon, this may change.

‘'In the last five years alone, there have been about 500 different papers on food and nutrition security related to AIDS,'' said Stuart Gillespie of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), now marking its third decade of work.

AIDS intensifies poverty in many devastating ways. Ailing farmers do not plough their fields, or pass on their knowledge of seeds and seasons to the next generation. Desperate widows are more likely to sell their bodies for sex in order to feed their children. The sick need more high-quality food than before, but find it far more difficult to eat.

Rural families reliant on money sent home by a relative working in the city suddenly find themselves with no source of income. The few people who receive life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) may find that the medication is severely handicapped without expensive vitamin supplements and other food aid.

And while the richer portion of the population may make the most noise about HIV/AIDS, the poorest suffer the most.

‘'Rural people in particular adopt hedging strategies against risk, but the multiple shocks and strains lead to their collapse,'' noted Joseph Tumushabe, consultant to the Ethiopia-based United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). ‘'Rural people don't get remittances any more. They get bodies. They get orphans. They get the sick.''

Yet there are success stories. In Tanzania, human rights lawyers brought court cases on behalf of dispossessed widows and orphans that the government changed the laws of inheritance so that land and possessions did not all flow in the direction of the brothers of the deceased.

In parts of India, people researching small-scale agricultural improvements - merely plugging gullies to prevent further erosion, for example - found to their surprise that this could have a discernible knock-on impact on disease trends.

Even though there are creative ways to fill the empty stomachs triggered by the AIDS epidemic, tracking down success stories requires a lot of detective work.

One of the problems facing isolated community organisations and lobby groups is that they are simply too busy helping people to document their efforts in ways that satisfy sceptical academics and funders, who like to point out that drought, famine, politics and globalisation can also cause devastating hunger and malnutrition. In the meantime, the virus is hunting for new homes.

In addition, most small, cash-strapped organisations are not in a position to tell others facing the same issues about their attempts to solve the problem. So the epidemic spreads but solutions stay at home.

‘'Where organisations have launched actions that address these interactions between HIV/AIDS and food insecurity, they have tended to be in isolation,'' confirmed Gillespie, a nutritionist by training. ‘'They are rarely monitored and evaluated.''

For this reason, he organised an international conference on HIV/AIDS and food and nutrition security in South Africa's port city of Durban, which wrapped up Apr. 18 with a news conference in the commercial hub of Johannesburg.

The subtitle of the conference made Gillespie's intentions clear: it was called ‘'from evidence to action.'' While some academics muttered to each other at tea breaks about the need for more information, many government representatives noted that delays simply allowed the disease to continue dragging down progress on a variety of fronts.

The economic impact is already present. ‘'It is estimated that by 2010, the gross domestic product of Tanzania will be 15 to 20 percent lower than it would have been without AIDS,'' Tumushabe said. ‘'And this is despite steady economic growth.''

Gladys Mutangadura, an economics affairs officer with the United Nations in Zambia, noted that if a cure for AIDS was found today, its devastating destruction would linger for decades, like an earthquake or a tsunami.

However, some researchers took a more optimistic view, noting that HIV/AIDS provides a window of opportunity for assisting the poorest of the poor - not for charitable reasons, but to defend the rich against the spread of the disease. The best defence against AIDS, in the long run, will be economic - but there are many paths to this mountaintop.

Sub-Saharan Africa will play an important role in charting the way forward, particularly for Asian countries which are equally dependent on subsistence agriculture but lag behind the continent in terms of the epidemic's lifespan.

‘'South Asia is fertile terrain, both for the spread of the virus and for its damaging interactions with food and nutrition security,'' Gillespie predicted. ‘'It is imperative that future work extends beyond Africa in order to be better prepared in other areas where such impacts may soon be experienced.''

Turf wars were evident at the conference. Gender activists expressed surprise that anyone else could possibly be surprised when Kenyan research showed men objecting to their women moving from food crops to attractive market crops such as sugar cane in order to cope with the economic devastation wreaked by HIV/AIDS. Drugs versus food was an issue for South Africans who knew that their rollout of anti- retroviral drugs has been delayed amidst bizarre advice from the Ministry of Health suggesting that patients should eat more olive oil, local potatoes and lemons. Both are important, Gillespie said.

Meanwhile, small-scale agriculture specialists closely involved with getting HIV/AIDS patients to grow more nutritious crops bristled when economists suggested that it was more effective for farmers to grow high-value crops and buy what they needed instead.

Environmentalists suspicious of genetically modified food aid tried to bring their debates into this arena, only to be corrected by the development consultant Tumushabe. ‘'The type of food eaten by HIV-positive people in Africa is not the issue,'' he tartly told a news conference. ‘'The question is whether they are accessing food at all.''

So in part, the conference mission was to persuade various participants to work together. Michael Loevinsohn, an ecologist with the RENEWAL regional network on AIDS and rural livelihoods in east and southern Africa, summed it up when he said, ‘'weaken one link, and you weaken them all.''

For him, the problem is that while AIDS cuts across health and agriculture, trade and industry, these are all separate government departments - and frequently separate non-governmental organisations as well - accustomed to independence and a narrow window of expertise. But each is doomed to failure if it does not work AIDS into its policy.

Gillespie wants everyone trying to tackle poverty, in what ever way, to use bifocals. They needed to use what he called ‘'an HIV lens'' to view their efforts. ‘'It doesn't mean your primary goal is to eradicate HIV/AIDS. You don't have to fight the epidemic. But you won't achieve your goals, whatever they are, if you don't take AIDS into account.''

‘'We are at a watershed,'' he warned. ‘'The crucial next step - using this growing knowledge to improve and scale up effective actions has yet to be taken.'' (END/2005)

Source: allAfrica.com