Aid focus shifts to mitigate impact of HIV/AIDS

The impact of HIV/AIDS on Swaziland's agricultural production has forced aid agencies to adjust their programming in a bid to mitigate the effects on food security. "Food shortages in Swaziland are compounded by the country's high HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rate, and it is therefore essential that the special nutritional needs of vulnerable people are met," said Angela Van Rynbach, World Food Programme (WFP) Country Representative. WFP's operation in Swaziland is part of a regional emergency operation in Southern Africa that also covers Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique and Lesotho. "I think it's clear to everybody by now that you can't separate food from AIDS," added Sarah Laughton, WFP Emergency Coordinator in Swaziland. "Ever since I arrived, there has been a back and forth whether WFP should remain here. Because Swaziland is ranked as a lower-middle-income country, we would normally not be here," she told PlusNews. Although, on paper, Swazis should have the collective wealth to purchase their own emergency food relief supplies, in reality two-thirds of the population lives in chronic poverty, according to a recent country profile by the United Nations Development Programme. Swaziland's rating by the World Bank as a lower-middle-income country, which should separate the kingdom from the truly poorest nations, is based on gross domestic product. But Swaziland has one of the world's largest divides between rich and poor, with considerable wealth concentrated in the royal family. Aid workers have criticised income averaging to determine the nation's qualification for assistance, and stressed that a more accurate measure of need is the number of poor and foodless Swazis. Currently, 156,750 Swazis are provided with food aid rations from WFP, up from 132,000 in July. As stored food from last year's harvest is depleted, an estimated 217,000 Swazis will need food assistance by January, before the summer crops can be harvested. About 40,000 additional Swazis receive food assistance through feeding schemes and nutritional supplements for pregnant women distributed at clinics. In total, about a quarter of the nation's population will require assistance by early next year. WFP is close to ensuring its presence in the country after the current emergency operation is concluded, and will likely include Swaziland in a three-year Protracted Relief and Recovery Operation (PRRO), said Laughton. "The goal is to move away from emergency assistance, and toward food self-sufficiency." Neighbouring Mozambique will be included in the PRRO project, as well as Lesotho, Malawi and Zambia. AIDS is the main reason WFP will remain in Swaziland. Weather forecasts predict average rainfall that could break the cycle of drought which has devastated smallholder farmers on communal Swazi Nation Land - where 80 percent of the population lives under palace-appointed chiefs. "If it does not rain, our crops die. There is no money for irrigation and pumps. Fortunately, there are some rains now, and we are planting," Mandla Hlatswako, an HIV positive farmer in the rural Luve area north of Manzini, told PlusNews. But Hlatswako says there will be no one to weed or harvest his fields if he is incapacitated by illness. Harvest yields of maize, the national staple food, and other crops are expected to decline for the fifth year. The loss of agricultural workers due to AIDS in the commercial sugar and citrus industries has had a negative effect, but small family farms are hardest hit. "First the father, and then the mother, dies of AIDS - we have more child-headed households in the rural lands. The grannies may survive, but they cannot work the fields. The older children drop out of school, but they are not able to farm as well as adults. This is why harvests were smaller, even where there were adequate rains last year," said Albertina Nyatsi of the Swaziland AIDS Support Organisation. The national cereal supply for 2003/04 is estimated to be 78,100 mt, about a third of the 205,800 mt required. Food relief agencies will provide 24,300 mt, and 127,700 mt of food will have to be imported commercially. This week, WFP received what it called a generous donation of US $2.2 million in food and cash from the Swaziland government. "This is the first donation Swaziland has ever made to WFP. It will cover procurement, distribution and monitoring of a total of 5,952 mt of food," said Van Rynbach. Aid will be targeted at the most vulnerable, such as orphans and the elderly, in the parched central and eastern regions. "The days of massive distribution of bulk food are over," said Laughton. "We are seeking ways to link our activities to HIV/AIDS." Working with government's National Emergency Relief Committee on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA), WFP is assisting 40 chieftaincies in the eastern drought belt to cultivate fields. The harvests will feed orphans in the areas, most of whose parents have died of AIDS. Chiefs are being enlisted in education programmes to promote non-traditional edible crops that are drought-resistant, like sorghum, cowpeas, and cassava. Food assistance is going to neighbourhood care points in impoverished townships, as well as 59 clinics in the eastern Lubombo and southern Shiselweni districts, where food rations go to pregnant and lactating women, and undernourished children under five years of age. "This is all useful, but for now it's limited. Under the new PRRO, we'll be expanding. We'll see how we can assist with home-based care programmes for people with AIDS, and provide for the clinics," Laughton said. Government's National Emergency Relief Task Force, which provides WFP with data on Swazis in need and carries out its own food relief work, is also changing its tactics. "Like the WFP, we are looking beyond the weather, and considering the long-term impact of AIDS. The effect is the same: fewer cultivated fields, inferior harvests, less food, and hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people," said Ben Nsibandze, director of the task force.