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Case studies > Malawi

Mitigating HIV/AIDS through various interventions - community based NGO

Where	Bwanje Valley, Malawi
Who	community based NGO: BERDO (Bwanje Environmental Rural Development Organisation) “target group”: 90 villages, organised in 250 groups, around 3.000 householdsmany HH affected by HIV/AIDS (baseline data of orphans, widows etc available)
Why	Objective: improve NRM and people’s livelihood - increase food availability, income, etc
What	Interventions: reforestation, beekeeping, guinea fowl production, fruit trees, improved clay stoves, composting, grinding mill (IGA to support orphans), etc.
With whom	Partnerships: COMPASS, OXFAM, Agri Ext worker,
How	Methodology: starting from 30 villages and then expanding, whenever additional demand and money came in started as environmental project due to interest of one of the leaders (one of heads of NGO), cross-sectoral approach (holistic community view), demand driven, bottom-up (community action planning), anyone can take part, transparent funding arrangement, linking existing resources (e.g. food aid from WFP) technical assistance by COMPASS conditioning: nothing is given for free to group members - free food security benefits (seeds, guinea fowl, bee hives, etc) only if certain NRM activities are done by member (e.g. tree planting, making compost)
How much	Benefits and Impact (survey done November 2002, during drought period – high food insecurity): better food security compared to other areas – people eating at least one meal a day, even selling food, improved soil fertility visible changed farming practises – (2 hands of compost to each plant) woodlots, fruit trees vulnerable HH were visited and showed these impacts vulnerable HH were not left out income from grinding mill was distributed to orphans in form of clothes, seeds, vitamin supplements, etc
Time line	1998 NGO registeredCBNRM started 2000increased funding from OXFAM 2002-2004
Gaps in evidence	The sample size was only 3 vulnerable HH with orphans, selected at random. Benefits are not quantified. Gaps in evidence related to mitigation: Some people do not join. Why? Who is excluded or not joining? Does this have anything to do with HIV/AIDS?Does the benefit go to mitigate HIV/AIDS or to the beer hall? Project did not start as HIV/AIDS mitigation project. The question whether the interventions mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS was not asked when starting interventions. Shift: now, HIV/AIDS mitigation activities are included – lack of baseline info Gaps in evidence related to general approach: How did it all start? What happened before the NGO registered?How was social capital mobilized in this very case?
How is this different from standard interventions	Ownership: project started by charismatic local community membersCommunity Based: demand driven - participatoryHolistic approach: cross-sectoral approachFlexibility: project was not planned as HIV/AIDS mitigating project but plans have now been developed, following a tried and approved approach.
Enabling factors	HH level: Incentive for participating: Food, seeds, treesvulnerable people take part Community level: Community pressure Ownership by community, community action plans channelling aid through community Organisational level: early pensioners started the NGO BERDO (Bwanje Environmental Rural Development Organisation), out of pension funds financial support from outside by COMPASS and OXFAMactive women’s group (high powered woman group)NGO is based in the community, trusting relationship246 groups pay membership fee (200 MKw)
	Policy level: none specific
Constraining factors	lack of information on sustainable agriculture (pest management without perticides) potential constraints: leading people (drivers) might leave cultural factors: jealousy; knowledge and skills are not passed on
Additional ideas or potential improvements	funding channel should be continuously open, but not too wide (donТ‘t flood)linking with other organisations, networking to be supported (exchange visits)
Scaling/ scaling out: implications	Identify CB key people and organisations in further villages and provide capacity building to them Look for potential facilitators in the communities Organise exchange visits Promote networks

Group Discussion

General principles (deduced from above example) not necessarily new projects/programmes are needed but flexibility within existing ones allowing process orientation close look at vulnerable people: are they excluded? why? how? use proxy indicators (no. of orphans, recent deaths, female headed HH, loss of access to land) to determine affected HH make sure most vulnerable are included and can benefit (get baseline data, gain understanding of communal interrelationships) success factors for approach: community based, demand driven - participatory, holistic and cross-sectoral approach, ownership charismatic local facilitators produce / provide more user-friendly resource material funding channel should be continuously open - though not too wide (donТ‘t flood) long term approach (no. of years no specified: development is on-going) giving people hope, vision, self-esteem (positive living) is as important as providing technical inputs open up opportunities to improvement in small steps How to scale up? (use lessons to influence development work) Bottom up approach, for example: Identify CBOТ‘s doing good participatory work Offer to mainstream HIV/AIDS mitigation into their programme If community accepts this idea, ask members to do needs assessment Use needs assessment to draft a capacity building plan Provide training resources and personnel for capacity building Identify facilitators to implement projects Multiply bottom-up approach: Apply snow-ball approach (monitor and supervise replication process so as not to lose quality) Next steps: What after this workshop? general: Define indicators for assessing HIV/AIDS mitigation Convince donors to do long term funding and accept the need for communities to plan their own development (open process) steps of individual group members Further develop training resources (manuals, posters, flyers) re mitigation of HIV/AIDS (Sam Page) Networking with BERDO (Martin Kade, David Magaia) Write up case study of VIDA POSITIVA Maputo (David Magaia) Develop further case studies (OXFAM) assess impact of biomass energy conservation measures (stoves, kitchen management) on mitigating HIV/AIDS (GTZ-ProBEC)

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