Nutrition and HIV/AIDS: A Training Manual - Linkages Project

Food-insecure populations may also lack access to education and materials, such ascondoms, needed to prevent infection. Conflict, which often worsens foodinsecurity, can also increase vulnerability to HIV/AIDS infection because of forcedmigration of populations, sexual assault, disruption of support services andprevention efforts, and high HIV prevalence among and transmission by soldiers. TheUN Interagency Standing Committee Task Force for HIV/AIDS in Emergency Settingsis developing guidelines on HIV/AIDS in such situations.The impact of HIV/AIDS is also more severe for food-insecure households. Suchhouseholds are often less able to access and afford health care services for infectedpeople. Households may be forced to choose between spending money on food or onhealth care. With less access to formal coping strategies such as insurance, foodinsecurehouseholds rely more on family, friends, and community (Gillespie et al2001), which becomes an increasingly weak support system as more and morehouseholds are themselves affected by the disease.Interventions to address HIV/AIDS and food security (slide 20)The interaction between HIV/AIDS and food security has been recognized relativelyrecently, and interventions to address this issue continue to emerge. While theseinterventions are too recent for their results to yield solid lessons, much can belearned from general food security interventions. Table 2 in Bonnard (2002) presentsa range of possible interventions to address the impact of HIV/AIDS on productivefactors that underlie food security.Food aid can be an effective instrument to address food insecurity caused byHIV/AIDS. However, food aid needs to be programmed so as not to createdisincentives for local production of food and not to create beneficiary dependenceon food aid. Planners of food aid interventions should aim to use food resources tobuild the coping capacities of communities and households, in addition to meetingshort-term food needs.Food assistance can be used to directly increase food insecure households’ access tofood through safety net programs; to support agricultural activities through food-forworkprograms; to support training programs in vocational and income-generatingactivities; and to encourage school attendance by orphans and vulnerable children,which can strengthen long-term food security.77