Aids, poverty, and hunger: challenges and responses

HIV lens needed to see interactions between food, poverty and HIV

By: Gillespie, S. (ed)
Published by: International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) , 2006
Via: Eldis

This book is based on the International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security: From Evidence to Action that took place in Durban, South Africa in April 2005. The book provides a forum to review emerging knowledge on the interactions between AIDS and hunger and to better understand what it implies for poverty, food and nutrition-relevant policy and programmes. The book is organised around three main themes. Theme one: interactions – considers those between agriculture and other rural livelihood systems, the spread of HIV and the impacts of AIDS at different levels. Theme two: local responses – details capacities and strategies of households and communities to reduce infection risk (resistance) and respond effectively to the impacts of HIV and AIDS (resilience). Theme three: policies, programmes and interventions – reviews processes and impacts of food- and nutrition-relevant policies that have sought to prevent the spread of HIV and/or mitigate the impacts of AIDS.

The editor argues that we should not be blind to AIDS, nor should we be blinded by AIDS. Rather, an HIV lens, not a filter, needs to be employed in order to see the interactions and overlapping set of problems between HIV and AIDS, food insecurity and malnutrition. Moreover, greater emphasis needs to be placed on learning from, supporting and enabling community-driven responses and innovations.