| Livelihoods |
| General |
Despite differences in the studies a common picture of a downward spiral leading ultimately to destitution was evident as the disease progressed in households. Broadly, the elements are:
- Loss of income due to loss of a job or the ability to work due to illness. This also affects people who have to stop working to care for the ill (formal wage employment is usually the first to go. People may continue longer with informal jobs, which bring lower returns)
- Depletion of savings and sale of assets to meet medical expenses and to pay for funerals. This may be accompanied by short term loans that people struggle to repay (results often include children having to leave school, limiting their future options)
- Limitation of livelihood options as a result of chronic illness with land use assuming increased importance as a result
- Vulnerability to loss of access to land following HIV/AIDS related deaths. This resulted from lack of secure tenure for widows and orphans following the death of adult male household heads.
- Limitation of ability to use the land as a result of illness and caring for the ill, sale of livestock, and inability to purchase inputs (although sharecropping arrangements played an important role in maintaining some access to produce from the land they were threatened by the decreasing ability to fulfil the mutual obligations that underpin them. Fear of losing land may also inhibit households from taking this route).
- Better resourced households have a greater chance of recovery.
Loss of income, ability to use the land and to fulfil mutual obligations all contribute to reduced food security.Despite its declining importance, land remains a significant resource in the livelihoods of most communities in sub-Saharan Africa and a main vehicle to invest, accumulate wealth and transfer it between generations. This varies from country to country and area to area. For example, in some parts of South Africa land no longer features in the livelihood strategies of household, but in other parts it remains an essential element.Lack of access to land is a major element in poverty with many of the world’s poor being landless.
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| Land use |
| General |
While land use may become an increasingly importance source of livelihood as the progress of HIV/AIDS limits other options, the progress of the disease also limits the capacity of households to use the land effectively. Infected members become too weak to work in the fields and the increasing burden of caring for them prevents other household members from working in the fields. The disease usually strikes down those household members with the most knowledge, skills and experience of farming, often before they have had the opportunity to pass these skills on to the next generation. As a result orphan households often lack the skills to use the land well. The impact of HIV/AIDS on government agencies is reducing the effectiveness of extension services. Market related practices such as service on demand are also limiting access to extension services. |
| Lesotho |
Sharecropping has reduced the amount of land left fallow as a result of people being too ill to work on their lands. Along with traditional practices like mafisa (loaning out livestock) it plays an important role in enabling affected households to continue getting something from the land. However these practices may also lead to people losing land or livestock and they are under pressure from the overall decline in the rural economy.
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| Malawi |
Affected households exhibit a declining ability to work the land, reduction in the amount of land
worked and conversion to crops that require less labour, fewer inputs and less expertise. They also
show a preference for multi-functional crops such as cassava. As the disease advances households
show a preference for food crops over cash crops and may only work on vegetable patches rather than
fields (this may have ecological consequences). Children of school going age take greater
responsibility for agricultural work with less supervision.Affected households may have to relinquish
land to relatives where there is a high labour to land ratio and people have to share land.
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| Land tenure /rights |
| General |
Inability to use land may endanger a household’s rights to land but the biggest issue here is that of inheritance following the death of a male household head. HIV/AIDS has exacerbated the already marginal land rights of women and children. Widows frequently face the threat of losing access to land on their husband’s death. This leads to a number of strategies including avoidance of remarriage to retain access. Orphans also face danger of losing access to land on the death of their parents. Guardians often usurp land. Orphans of single mothers fare the worst.Increase in conflicts over land. Both the South African and Lesotho studies showed traditional authorities playing a role in helping to protect the land rights of widows and orphans but not always being effective in enforcing their decisions when relatives usurped land.
Commercialising farming, increasing the size of landholdings, or limiting land holding to those who have the ‘ability and resources to use it effectively’ all make land tenure more insecure for affected households. For some, HIV/AIDS represents an opportunity to accumulate land (for example elders who may gain access to land from which women and orphans are excluded).
The land rights that define security of tenure are the ability to:
- Occupy
- Use
- Transact
- Exclude
- And the power to exercise these four.
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| Kenya |
There are three forms of tenure – customary, leasehold and freehold. The ongoing land reform process presents an opportunity for impact.
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| Lesotho |
Need a closer analysis of the ongoing land review process and the drafting of a White Paper on land policy. The land review recommended doing away with customary tenure. This would have a negative impact on the livelihoods of HIV/AIDS affected households.
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| Malawi |
Although chiefs traditionally played a major role in land allocation, now that little new land is
available for allocation family heads have largely taken over this role as family holdings are
fragmented to accommodate new families. This leads to diminishing size of holdings, increasing
landlessness and increasing conflict over land.
The breakdown of land management systems as land
becomes more crowded leads to degradation of natural resources.Once land is allocated to a family
under the traditional tenure system it is difficult to reallocate. This leads to land not being used
effectively, and could lead to increasing demand for reallocation to landless families.
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| South Africa |
The traditional tenure system is based on marriage making it difficult for households that do not fit this profile to enter the system.
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| Land policy and administration |
| General |
Land policies do not address HIV/AIDS specifically and its implications for land rights,
tenure and use.
Government departments dealing with the impact of HIV/AIDS do not integrate and coordinate
their policies and programmes.
Government agencies responsible for land administration, extension services and HIV/AIDS
programmes are not recognising that they are losing personnel to the pandemic and taking
appropriate action to ensure that they have the human resource capacities needed to maintain
services and programmes to address the impacts of HIV/AIDS.
|
| Kenya |
Government response is practical rather than strategic, with the focus on dealing with situations as they arise.
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| Lesotho |
The proposal put forward in the land review process to do away with customary tenure is
problematic in the context of HIV/AIDSNeed to look beyond the concept of compassionate chiefs
for the factors motivating their sympathetic handling of affected households. Chiefs are opposing
changes to the land laws, which will reduce their role and powers.
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| Gender / age |
| General |
The community based care strategy favoured by governments is threatened by poverty and limited
services available in rural areas.
Stigma, lack of understanding and fear inhibit the ability
of communities to provide adequate support [cultural inhibitions about dealing with sex openly
plus cultural practices that contribute to the spread of the disease].
Stigma, leads to concealment,
which prevents effective treatment.Stigma and fear lead to unwillingness to take on orphans.
This adds to major practical problems arising from poverty, economic decline and limited services
available in rural areas. As a result traditional support structures have limited capacity to help
affected households and individuals, while more recently introduced structures (government, church)
have not reached a level where they can meet the growing needs (especially the case for land use).
Many traditional support systems and practices (for example cultivating the land of ill community
members in Malawi) based on social cohesion are now significantly eroded by attitudes of
individualism and self sufficiency.
The tendency for people to leave urban areas and return to rural
homes as disease progresses increases the burden on rural society.
|
| Kenya |
Orphans have no direct land rights, and are frequently taken advantage of, orphans of single women are the most disadvantaged of all.
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| Malawi |
Men and women have equal access to land in law but in practice most women access land through men.
Even in matrilineal areas where men hold user rights through their wives, the women’s tenure depends
on her maternal uncle, while husbands still exercise power over the use of land and its products.
The in-laws rather than the law determine women’s access to land in Malawi
|
| Community support |
| General |
The community based care strategy favoured by governments is threatened by poverty and limited
services available in rural areas. Stigma, lack of understanding and fear inhibit the ability
of communities to provide adequate support [cultural inhibitions about dealing with sex openly
plus cultural practices that contribute to the spread of the disease].Stigma, leads to concealment,
which prevents effective treatment.Stigma and fear lead to unwillingness to take on orphans.
This adds to major practical problems arising from poverty, economic decline and limited services
available in rural areas. As a result traditional support structures have limited capacity to help
affected households and individuals, while more recently introduced structures (government, church)
have not reached a level where they can meet the growing needs (this is especially the case for
land use). Many traditional support systems and practices (for example cultivating the land of ill
community members in Malawi) based on social cohesion are now significantly eroded by attitudes
of individualism and self-sufficiency.The tendency for people to leave urban areas and return to
rural homes as disease progresses increases the burden on rural society.
|
| Kenya |
Communities are dealing with deaths from HIV/AIDS as individual occurrences rather than seeking a broader response to the pandemic.
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| Malawi |
The community may influence access to land particularly where it is in short supply.
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