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Mozambique National Human Development Report 2007The non-quantifiable impact –the case of social capitalIn dealing with the impact (generally not fully quantifiable)that HIV and AIDS exert upon the community,the systems of organising community life shoulddeserve attention and analysis, including those thatgenerate, transfer and sustain knowledge.For the case of Mozambique, this attentionbecomes all the more justified, since it is known thatmore than two-thirds of its population lives in thecountryside and manages their life based on systemsand patterns of behaviour and communication rootedin custom. Custom is, in a manner of speaking,the reservoir and at the same time the most subtleexpression of knowledge, values and convictions,expressed in culture that governs the modes of materialand spiritual production.For some time, academics have been mentioningthe possibility that HIV and AIDS may contribute to thedisappearance of traditional social structures at household,village or regional level, which have a critical rolein the welfare and management of family or socialresources (Norse, 1991). These structures are definedwithin a broader framework known as social capital.Here, social capital refers to a series of “characteristicsof social organisation such as trust, normsand work networks which can improve the efficiencyof society by facilitating coordinated actions”(Whiteside & Sunter, 2000). It is, indeed, a series ofspecific processes that evolve between persons andorganisations, working in a collaborative manner inan atmosphere of trust, with the purpose of achievinggoals that bring mutual or collective social benefits.Social capital has a significant role in reproducingor transforming social inequities. It stimulates the participationof people in working networks that, apartfrom producing community benefits, consolidate levelsof trust based on identification with the objective ofcollective action. Likewise it increases practices of solidarityand mutual aid, as well as positive local identity.Its action is part of social awareness, and is thus notquantifiable through direct methods.Examples are togetherness based on churches,campaigns of mutual support among peasants inpreparing fields and in harvests, popular associationsaround informal savings schemes, etc.Communities characterised by high levels ofsocial capital provide better conditions for a healthylife. Linked to this fact, it has been argued that communitycapacity to mobilise or create social capital isan important determinant for the success of participatoryinterventions in promoting community health(Campbell, 2003).The organisation and functioning of communitiesbring together decisive elements for the successof interventions that catalyse social capital.Furthermore, people living in communities with highlevels of social capital will very probably display highstandards of control over their daily lives.The fact that the morbidity and mortality causedby AIDS falls upon individuals whose contribution tothe maintenance or transfer of social capital is determinant(36-49 years are the age groups most affectedamong men) will create social erosion with strongnegative impacts on community development. Theseimpacts will be reflected in the traditional systems ofsolidarity and social cohesion, as well as in the transmissionof values through the pure socialization andinteraction between generations of different ages.The most representative expression of this chainof impacts is shown through the break in the naturalsequence of the passage of “social testimony” (traditionsand habits of life) through the daily routine andthe community life between parents, children, grandparentsand grandchildren and a gradual loss of collectivesocial memory.A study undertaken in Chókwè, in Gaza province,on “The Impact of HIV and AIDS on the knowledge offarmers concerning seeds” (Links, 2005), showedthat HIV and AIDS is one of the many factors that mayresult in the loss of traditional crops and varietiesand erode knowledge about seeds. The study alsoindicates that the loss of active and adult farmers,and the increase in the number of orphans, willdeprive the children of the opportunities of learningfrom other members of the household.Yet more critical is the forecast of this impact onother rural systems where the management of communalproperty is important. Indeed, on the assumptionthat learning through daily socialisation takesplace informally, both the mortality and the morbiditycaused by AIDS will result in the loss of valuespeculiar to individuals but generally invested for thecommon good, particularly the skills of improvisingand responding promptly to specific events, basedon the combination of common sense and the exerciseof influence resulting from peculiar and nontransmissiblequalities.The loss of these characteristic and essentialtraits of a social system with solid social capital will40
The General Threat posed by HIV and AIDS to the Country’s Futureconstitute a major setback for rural households andcommunities, and may impose a new form of organisationand structuring of communal life. These arethe scenarios that are beginning to characterise communitieswhere there are an ever growing number ofhouseholds headed by children (who have lost theirfather) and where the mortality caused by AIDS hasled to declines in material and spiritual productionand productivity in general.The impact of HIV and AIDS on social capital isstill a subject that deserves deeper analysis in thegeneral framework of studies that the area is beginningto mobilise. As already reported, these impactsare proving severe and adverse for many ruralMozambican communities. Analysis in other countrieswhere the epidemic matured earlier posestrongly the possibility that the weight of the epidemicon social capital may lead to a trend towards thedestructuring or even the disappearance of traditionalsocial systems at community level (Norse, 1991).Food security, HIV and AIDS and nutritionFood security presupposes access by everybody andat all times to sufficient food for an active and healthylife. It is thus a basic condition for the human organismto create conditions to defend itself from possibleinfirmities. The lack of resources to produce oracquire food leads to food insecurity.While all those infected by HIV need specialattention in food and nutritional terms, pregnantwomen who are infected need to ensure an optimalnutritional status in order to reduce the likelihood oftransmitting the virus to their babies, and so that theycan have a safer birth. HIV-positive children havesocial nutritional needs so as to avoid retarding theirnormal development and help them survive.HIV and AIDS increase vulnerability to food insecurity.In turn, food insecurity contributes to susceptibilityto HIV infection and its progression to AIDS.Food security is part of a concentric chain of theprovision of interlinked services, which includes theproduction, availability and access to food, as well asstandards of food consumption. That is why, for amore thorough analysis of the influence that foodinsecurity exerts over susceptibility to HIV and AIDS,an integrated examination of the agro-ecological,housing and socio-economic characteristics of eachregion becomes important (SETSAN, 2004).In Mozambique, food security is influenced byseveral risk factors that condition how prone individ-uals are to food insecurity. These risks are structuredinto:• Production risks associated with drought, floods,pests or animal diseases;• Risks linked to difficulties in access to food, dueto poverty, unemployment, instability, or theimperfect functioning of the market;• Risks associated with endemic diseases, particularlymalaria, tuberculosis, cholera and HIV andAIDS; and• Risks associated with social instability amonghouseholds, which may lead to violence and/orto divorce.National statistics show that almost 80% of thecountry’s population live in the countryside, and thatabout 95% of the national labour force is absorbedby the agricultural sector, which is the base that sustainsproduction and thus food security (SETSAN,2004). This fact, when confronted with the progressionof the epidemic, and particularly with the factthat the groups most affected are those of active age,leads to the conjecture that HIV and AIDS will have asignificant impact on the agrarian sector and henceupon food security.However, this impact will depend on the structureof the agricultural sector, particularly of the family sectorand on the production techniques of systems usedin agricultural activity. In fact, the Mozambican familyagricultural sector is not only prone to constraintssuch as natural disasters (drought, floods and pests),but also faces production limitations, such as access tocredit or to pesticides.Bearing in mind that AIDS affects, to a largeextent, those of productive age, the death of a householdmember weakens that household’s productivecapacity, by reducing the work force needed to cultivatethe fields. The subsequent reduction in the areaunder cultivation will in practice be expressed in adecline in income.With the sickness or death of the main householdproviders of resources, a chain of complicationsarises in managing the life of the surviving members,namely the crisis in family agricultural work, managementskills, changes in cultivation systems, anincrease in the number of orphans, medical costs,diversion of labour in order to look after the sick,loss of production income, and reduced ability tobuy agricultural inputs (seeds, fertilizer, etc.). Theseaggregate factors often end up generating situationsof chronic food insecurity.41
Page 3 and 4: Preface“Mozambican men and women:
Page 5 and 6: Forewordby the UN Resident Coordina
Page 7: ContentsPrefaceForewordContentsList
Page 10 and 11: Mozambique National Human Developme
Page 18 and 19: 6Mozambique National Human Developm
Page 42 and 43: 30Mozambique National Human Develop
Page 48: Mozambique National Human Developme
Page 51: The General Threat posed by HIV and
Page 55 and 56: Chapter 7National Strategies agains
Page 57 and 58: National Strategies against the Spr
Page 69 and 70: Chapter 8Planning for the Future: T
Page 71 and 72: Planning for the Future: The Window
Page 79 and 80: Technical NotesTechnical Note 1Calc
Page 81 and 82: Technical NotesConclusionsIn this w
Page 83 and 84: Technical Notesmaximum and minimum
Page 85 and 86: References and BibliographyADEPESE
Page 87: Statistical Annex75

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