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HIV/AIDS AND ITS IMPACT ON LAND ISSUES
IN MALAWI
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On the basis of the findings of the study, the following recommendations are made:
5.1 There is need to raise the profile of the challenge posed by HIV/AIDS to poverty reduction. Government, NGOs and other civil society entities need to develop a collaborative strategy for publicizing and addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS on people’s access to land, their ability to retain it, as well as their ability to make productive use of it.
5.2 Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper: This should award households that are badly affected by HIV/AIDS and are becoming progressively poorer special consideration in the planning and implementation of poverty reduction initiatives. Although the PRSP makes several mentions of HIV/AIDS in every section, the provisions appear to be add-ons, and the focus on HIV/AIDS is not integrated in the Paper. In addition, the chapters on cross-cutting issues (AIDS, gender and the environment) are at the end of the document rather than at the beginning. It is the recommendation of the study that further work is required on the PRSP to include a stronger analysis of AIDS.
5.3 Key laws, policies and development strategies should be reviewed to ensure that provisions that marginalise those affected by HIV/AIDS are amended. In this regard, the following specific recommendations are made:
5.3.1 Decentralisation: Local governments should have both the authority and the financing to expand extension and service facilities to make these more accessible to people who are ill or those caring for the ill.
5.3.2 National Land Policy: The phrase “those with the ability and resources” which appears in the National Land Policy as a qualification for people to be awarded secure access to land must be removed. This provision should not be included in any subsequent legislation emanating from the National Land Policy. Some NGOs have the opportunity and the capacity to facilitate such a review of the legal framework as well as the advocacy work that would follow.
5.3.3 Agricultural Extension Policy: Policymakers should recognise the potential negative implications of demand-driven agricultural extension as proposed in the Agricultural Extension Policy. While demand-driven extension is not negative in itself, it becomes negative if it is the only option available and if it ends up excluding people who need help. Demand-driven should therefore not be introduced without parallel efforts to support marginalised families. People who are suffering from chronic illness, and those who are caring for others, are seldom in a position to demand services. Changing composition of households makes it less likely that de facto household heads, including children and the elderly, will be able to access demand-driven extension.
5.3.4 Land Bill: Measures must be taken to improve the ability of those affected by HIV/AIDS to have secure access to land; to improve their ability to retain such land and to utilize it effectively. Civil society should lobby the drafters of the proposed land law to ensure that the law includes provisions that have the potential to improve the land tenure security of those affected by HIV/AIDS, particularly widows and orphans.
5.3.5Contradictory laws on gender and marginalised people: Contradictory laws relating to the marginalised, particularly women, should be harmonized. In this regard, there is need to ensure consistency in the provisions relating to the empowerment of women and children as contained in the following statutes:
- The Constitution
- The National Land Policy
- The Gender Policy
- The PRSP
- The Wills and Inheritance Act
- The Land Bill
5.3.6 Studies on the role of land in livelihoods of HIV/AIDS affected households: There is need for more focused studies to shed further light on the implications of the greater reliance on land by those with a previously more varied livelihood strategy and are now badly affected by HIV/AIDS. Organisations such as Oxfam can and should commission such studies.
5.3.7 Mainstreaming of HIV/AIDS impact mitigation: The National HIV/AIDS Policy calls for HIV/AIDS to be mainstreamed into all development planning; this should include the National Land Policy and the Draft Land Bill. To this end a review of the land (and broader development) legal framework, with reference to the actual impacts of HIV/AIDS on people’s ability to access, retain, and utilize land, is recommended. Key components of the various statutes should be assessed for their ability to help people to mitigate the impacts of illness and death.
5.3.8 Land institutions: For the most part land administration institutions do not appear to have grasped and positioned themselves to address the present impacts and future implications of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, in terms of declining internal capacity of the institutions themselves, and in how illness and death affect their clientele. The authors of this study recommend that more effort be channelled towards the issue of HIV/AIDS mainstreaming within land administration institutions both internally and in their programme work.
5.3.9 Gender: The study concluded that there continues to be appreciable marginalisation of women in relation to their land rights. Therefore drafters of the upcoming Land Bill are urged to ensure that the gender sensitivity proposed by the National land Policy is implemented. This requires that the provisions of the Land Bill assume a degree of gender bias in favour of women in order to reverse the prevailing situation. Civic education should accompany legal provisions that are intended to improve the situation of widows and orphans. Such education campaigns should aim at continually raising communities’ awareness of the negative implications of discriminatory customs and practices on vulnerable members of society, and on rights and responsibilities enshrined in law.
5.3.10 Literature review and summary of studies: In attempting to resolve and regularize the manner in which prevailing inheritance systems influence the ability of certain groups to gain secure access to land, the Land Bill currently being drafted should be cautious not to over-simplify a very complex situation. While an appreciable number of studies have been carried out, an audit of existing literature needs to be carried out, with the view of collating this information and identifying remaining gaps. The recommendations of the National Land Policy (and therefore the proposals of the Land Bill) should be assessed against the outcomes of the audit and policymakers lobbied accordingly. Organizations such as Oxfam can play a catalytic role in this process.
5.3.11 Audit of community support mechanisms: There is need for the various components of society (assisted by state and local government infrastructure) to carry out an audit of functional support mechanisms available to those affected by HIV/AIDS. These should be assessed for effectiveness and strategies for augmenting them developed, so that subsequent development efforts support, rather than replace, existing mechanisms. Oxfam can facilitate this process by embarking on education campaigns to increase awareness of the problem among communities and to increase appreciation for the safety-net role of previous community support systems. This campaign should be designed so as to encourage communities to adopt once again, the former values relating to social cohesion and joint responsibility for the under-privileged (adjusted to take present day realities into account). An important aspect of this work will be the assessment of the performance to date of village orphan committees and, in partnership with government and international development partners, developing a strategy for improving and extending the operation of these structures.
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