How HIV/AIDS Affected Communities Innovate

The following is an abstract of the article, Innovation in Agriculture and Natrual Resource Management in Communities Affected by HIV/AIDS: A review of International Experience, by Michael Loevinsohn of Applied Ecology Associates in the Netherlands. It is a part of a Promoting Local Innovation working paper series.

This document aims to review international experience on the role of agriculture and natural resource management (NRM) in preventing and alleviating HIV/AIDS. In particular it draws attention to the importance of local innovation in these efforts and to the experience gained in identifying and boosting local innovation processes. Examples of local innovations of both a social and technical nature are described, as far as possible together with an assessment of the conditions that have favoured or hindered innovation. The purpose is to provide guidance to the country teams in their search for relevant local innovations and in planning for the workshops that they will be organising with partners in both the agriculture/NRM and AIDS/health communities.

We first outline some of the key features of HIV/AIDS epidemics and of their relationship with rural livelihoods dependent on agriculture and NRM. We then discuss in turn how the spread of HIV infection can be hastened when rural livelihoods are undermined and how the illness and deaths that follow infection can contribute to undermining rural livelihoods. This sets the stage for discussion of the roles local innovation play in the struggle with HIV/AIDS and for considering some of the local innovations that have come to light. We also ask why local innovation is not better recognised and appreciated, describe some of the constraints it faces and provide some ideas on ways this initiative can improve the situation.