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HIV/AIDS AND ITS IMPACTS ON LAND TENURE AND LIVELIHOODS IN LESOTHO
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- There is a need to develop and support income-generating initiatives for people affected with HIV/AIDS that take into account the limited labour capacity of infected individuals and affected households. Opportunities to earn income will ensure that HIV/AIDS affected households do not always depend on hand outs that hurt their pride and depress them. Such activities will give the victims a sense of purpose and keep them active.
- Policies to address the felt needs of people infected by HIV/AIDS should be developed. These policies should be developed in a participatory manner and should recognise the affected households as stakeholders. They should be formulated with all the stakeholders and designed in a way that will maintain dialogue between affected people and policy makers.
- Home care support programmes and community support structures such as the extended family, are the key to strategies that will ensure care for HIV/AIDS victims without overburdening government and other institutions. However, at present these support structures are overwhelmed and need support themselves. Research is needed into social policies that are sensitive to the impacts of HIV/AIDS on households coping mechanisms.
- Relevant institutions should be given a clear mandate and all the necessary support to implement their activities. This requires full time personnel otherwise AIDS issues will continue to be perceived as secondary issues. Efforts should also be made to monitor AIDS programmes to ensure that all communities are adequately covered and that problem areas are given special attention.
- The government should acknowledge the impacts that HIV/AIDS is having on its service delivery capacities, especially at the grass roots level, and put in place appropriate safety nets. This will help to avoid the problem of developing sound policies that cannot be implemented due to shortages in personnel.
- The various ministries that are directly involved in community development and welfare need to develop robust HIV/AIDS sensitive policies that are informed by the felt needs of the affected households and infected individuals.
- Integration of existing HIV/AIDS policy with other government and organisational policies to cater for the affected households and infected individuals would be the best framework for supporting the struggle against HIV/AIDS at policy level. This would ensure the protection of widow’s and orphans rights at policy level.
- The importance of land to communities calls for concerted efforts to make the public aware of current Land Acts and proposed changes to land policy. Particular attention should be paid to provisions likely to affect households affected by HIV/AIDS. Provisions likely to have negative impacts should be removed or reformulated and those likely to have positive impacts should be strengthened.
- Mechanisms already being used by communities to make land policies suit their present circumstances should be examined and where possible adopted in current or proposed land policy and legislation.
- Counselling sessions should not be limited to infected households but should be extended to other members of the community to avoid stigmatisation. Land administrators should be fully informed about the epidemic and various legislations that govern the rights of the affected households. This will alleviate the problem of subjectivity.
- Research is needed on high yielding, nutritive, fast maturing, water efficient and pest and disease resistant varieties of various crops especially vegetables. By minimising labour and irrigation requirements and decreasing the duration of farm operations these crops would improve the affected households’ food security and their ability to generate income.
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