HIV/Aids, climate change and poverty cycle

THE PAST decade or so has seen two major issues grabbing our attention through continued mention in the media. HIV/Aids and climate change.
HIV/Aids earned its notoriety from the millions of lives it has claimed over the years, while climate change has been touted for its potential undesirable future effects on yet again millions of the world’s habitants. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), an estimated 36 million people have died of Aids the world over since the first cases were reported in 1981. Such figures show the severity of the effects of HIV/Aids and how the disease has decimated the human race.

On the other hand, climate change experts have predicted that by 2050, average crop yield in Sub-Saharan Africa will go down by between 30 percent and 50 percent, illustrating the extent to which climate change threatens to affect food security in the region, and possibly across the globe. It is however, unusual to see HIV/Aids and climate change being discussed within the same narrative, be it in the media, social platforms or even among the academia.

These two subjects are generally seen to belong to different realms of discourse, yet they share an intricate relationship. A relationship which, when closely unpacked, reveals how the sum effects of the two can have far more devastating effects on livelihoods in Zimbabwe and the world at large. Zimbabwe’s HIV prevalence rate stands at 15,3 percent, which is a little bit on the high compared to other countries in the world. Comparison with other Eastern and Southern African countries shows that in the mid-1990s, Zimbabwe probably had the highest HIV prevalence in the world.

At one time Zimbabwe went for a sustained period, recording an average of 2 000 deaths a week due to Aids.
Available data shows that HIV/Aids affects the most economically productive segment of the country’s population, people between the ages of 15 and 49. It therefore, goes without mention that HIV/Aids has imposed and continues to exert significant pressure on the country’s socio-economics. One can further posit that, to an extent, HIV-related deaths have reduced the country’s labour force, while at the same time exerting pressure on already strained health budgets and facilities.

According to a document produced by the National Aids Council, the Smart Investment to End HIV/Aids in Zimbabwe based on Hotspot Analysis, the high morbidity and death rates due to the disease affects labour quality and results in supply loss, debilitates the labour, increases absenteeism, skills losses, efficiency and knowledge losses, accelerate staff turnover as well as morale drop which may lead to diminished productivity.

The Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) notes that the disease by 2020, will result in the loss of a significant percentage of the labour force in Zimbabwe. Labour turnover and death result in a less experienced labour force with lower productivity leading to direct diminishing of the nation’s productivity capacity.

While as a nation we are still battling to contain, and to an extent come to terms with the effects of HIV/Aids on our socio-economics, the country has also been shown to be highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with the agricultural sector bearing the heaviest brunt of it. Consider this, Zimbabwe is a strongly agro-linked economy, with an agricultural sector still largely dominated by smallholder rural farmers who depend on human labour to produce food and earn incomes from the land. Any threats to this production system is in turn a threat to livelihoods and the country’s economy as well. HIV/Aids’s effects on agriculture are well documented while climate change poses challenges, probably with the same effects of a similar magnitude as Aids.

HIV/Aids diminishes farming production of both cash and food crops and also crop variety due to labour loss.
According the FAO, in 2000 Agricultural labour losses was 9,6 percent and would increase to 22,7 percent by 2020.
For commercial and business firms, HIV/Aids may cause losses in experienced and skilled labour resulting in low productivity due to shortage of labour during crucial periods of planting and harvesting.

Climate change expert Dr Nkulumo Zinyengere explained the complex relations between HIV/Aids and climate change, and the threats the two pose on humanity.

“The effect of climate change on smallholder farming, which is mostly rural-based is exacerbated by the socio-economic status of rural farmers. Rural farmers regularly produce food and crops under challenging social and economic conditions. I will only mention one, labour. In Zimbabwe, because of HIV/Aids, labour on rural farm lands has been regularly compromised, either through down time when members of the family are ill or through losing a member of the family to Aids.

“Pressure is exerted on already meager household financial resources as families seek medical assistance for those infected by the disease, thereby reducing the finances for acquiring adequate farming inputs and hiring supplementary labour among other needs. These challenges already make farming a challenge and contribute to poor production, feeding into an already entrenched poverty cycle. Climate change is set to make this situation even worse,” he argued.

Researchers have predicted that climate change will lead to major losses in yields of major food crops, leading to major food shortages, low incomes and to less surplus produce. Rural communities will regularly have to supplement their food baskets through purchasing food.

Given the already strained finances owing to HIV/Aids-related health expenses, it becomes apparent that sustaining livelihoods in rural farming communities in Zimbabwe may become a Herculean task when HIV/Aids and climate change are compounded together and confront our communities. While HIV/Aids is predicated to further decimate the labour force, inevitably affecting production levels in the communal and commercial agriculture sectors, on the other hand extreme weather conditions due to climate change continue to eat into yields, particularly in communal farming.

FAO, (2001) points out that HIV/Aids is capable of having devastating effects on household food and nutrition security. The level of impact on households vary according to the household’s production activities which can either be agricultural or non-agricultural. HIV/Aids, FAO further notes, causes a reduction in farming production, therefore, a reduction of cash crops and food crops due to labour loss. In the long run, the HIV/Aids epidemic leads to a chronic food crisis — low quantities, less nutrition among the affected households and individuals.

At the same time, HIV/Aids impairs the nutritional status of an individual by compromising the immune system, additionally it suppresses the nutrient intake, absorption and use.

One can only imagine the devastating sum effect the two phenomena (HIV/Aids and climate change) may have on communities if urgent and effective intervention action is not taken. Individuals living with HIV and are on medication require sound nutrition. With both HIV/Aids and climate change affecting the quality and quantity of agricultural production and leaving communities impoverished, people living with HIV have never been more vulnerable.

As farming becomes less and less rewarding, it is common for rural folk to migrate to cities and towns to look for better livelihood prospects. It is mostly the young and able bodied that migrate, further straining the rural and farm labour force as the elderly and children remain to work the land. Employment opportunities remain scarce in cities and towns, leaving rural-city immigrants stranded and having to resort to extra-ordinary means of survival. This has contributed to social ills such as crime and risky sexual behaviour.

People end up moving into crowded high-density residential areas and illegal settlements where heavy drinking, prostitution and crime are rampant. HIV/Aids finds comfort in such settings, where it gladly rears its ugly head.
Ironically, when people begin to show signs and symptoms of the disease, it is common for them to return to villages, further straining resources there and continuing the vicious cycle that has a revolving door of poverty with HIV/Aids and climate change as the hinges.

Development expert and lecturer at the Zimbabwe Open University (ZOU), Mr Enoch Musara however, shared a different notion, arguing that HIV was no longer a threat to communities and their socio- economics, owing to the availability of treatment, which has seen many people able to live with the virus for many years. He said in as much as HIV/Aids and climate change married together could be seen as a deadly combination, it was actually climate change that had far more catastrophic effects on humanity.

“The reality of these two, HIV/Aids and climate change is that they both affect human life. However, as of the contemporary period HIV is not much of a threat to human life because of availability of drugs. It is actually climate change which now poses a number of effects on communities and their socio-economics. Cyclones, hurricanes and heatwaves among other extreme weather conditions have far more devastating and immediate impacts on human life than HIV. This is why focus, world over, is slowly shifting from HIV/Aids towards climate change and mitigating its impacts. The war against HIV is almost won, but the threat posed by climate change on people’s socio-economic set up is what needs to be contained,” he said.

With Zimbabwe working on crafting a National Climate Change policy, and the Climate Change Response Strategy already in place, one hopes that the country is better prepared to deal with the future effects of the phenomenon as well as contain the present challenges posed by climate change.

Marrying intervention strategies of both HIV/Aids and Climate change, would in a way help in effectively mitigating the sum impacts the two phenomena may have on communities if they were to be experienced simultaneously in one setting. The Climate Change Policy and the Zimbabwe National HIV and Aids strategic plan must speak to each other to achieve optimum results in the country’s response to the two phenomena which appear to have intricate links but catastrophic consequences.