[pronut-hiv] Humanitarian aid and HIV (3)

["ProNut-HIV" <pronut-hiv@healthnet.org>]

SOUTHERN AFRICA: Interview with researcher Paul Harvey on humanitarian aid and HIV

Q: There's been a lot of discussion about the need for a new development model; a new development paradigm. What, in your view, does that mean?

A: If linking relief and development were straightforward, then we'd have been doing it much better for the last 10 years, because we've been talking about it at least for that long. There are good as well as bad reasons for the need for a distinct humanitarian aid delivery mechanism, that is, in some sense, different and distinct from development ... I think HIV/AIDS both creates new challenges to the way in which the broader international system is structured, and also reinforces existing needs.

To start with the humanitarian [approach], which, in a sense ... is what we've really been talking about - it's the challenge of mainstreaming the need to take into account HIV/AIDS*related vulnerabilities across different cycles and sectors. But then you get into this ... potentially mind boggling and circular argument about terminology: what's an emergency and what's development, and what do these different concepts mean? But if you take the fact that problems related to HIV/AIDS are probably going to be around for decades, that's clearly a long-term challenge, and that creates a need for the development system - for want of a better word - to take on those challenges.

In relation to the focus of my report [www.odihpn.org], which is emergencies and humanitarian action, I highlight a few - one of which is disaster preparedness and mitigation issues * but the development system remains oddly premised on the idea of progress, and oddly reluctant to accept the fact that periodic crises are inevitable, whether they are relating to drought, conflict, or vulnerabilities related to HIV/AIDS, or the interaction between all three of them.

So, to take Malawi in 2002 as an example, it is utterly predictable that there will be periodic drought in Southern Africa, and that the drought in 2002 was going to recur at some point and create a crisis. And yet the development assistance system in Malawi in late 2001 and early 2002 was singularly ill-equipped to notice there was a crisis going on and respond to it.

And, to the extent that HIV/AIDS and its impact on food insecurity means that crises are likely to be triggered more easily, that just reinforces the fact that that isn't good enough. There's a need for greater investment in disaster preparedness and mitigation. It's not a new issue, but HIV/AIDS makes it doubly important to be taken on board... It also reinforces the need for the broader development system to take on board the need for long-term welfare, and for social protection, and for safety nets, which, again, is not a new problem.

I come back to Malawi because I know it best, but in a country were 80 percent of the population are poor - and of that number another percentage are what they call 'ultra-poor' - there's clearly already a need for a safety net for some of those people; and that this level of destitution and inability to participate in any kind of development process, for the weakest members of society means that in an ideal world, there'll be some kind of safety nets; and that's reflected in PRSPS [poverty reduction strategy papers developed by governments] and development terminology these days, but is rarely reflected in reality. Lip service is paid to it, but it doesn't happen - except to an interesting extent in Malawi, in relation to the starter-pack programme [in which farmers were provided with small quantities of free seed and fertiliser].