AEGIS ECAS 2007 - View abstract

Panel	39. Livelihood, Vulnerability and Health. Moving beyond existing frameworks
Paper ID	187
Author(s)	Nombo, Carolyne Ignatius; Niehof, Anke
Paper	No paper submitted
Abstract	The role of social capital in development has in recent years received increasing attention. Social capital seems to have evolved into panacea for the problems affecting communities. There are paradoxes in the way social capital produced in social networks is used, generated and maintained in the situation of HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS pandemic represents a great threat to rural livelihoods. HIV/AIDS morbidity and mortality affect household resources and assets, resulting in a reduction in the ability of the household to generate livelihood and adjust to the future shocks. Drawing from Mkamba village in Morogoro region in Tanzania, this study used a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the impacts of HIV/AIDS on social capital and its implications on rural livelihoods. The findings revealed that emphasis given to social networks in helping HIV/AIDS- affected individuals and households cope with problems in the existing literatures do not hold in the face of HIV/AIDS and other socio-economic changes. The study found that HIV/AIDS epidemic coupled with other socio-economic factors have complex, wide-ranging and gender-specific impacts on rural livelihoods. The impact of HIV/AIDS is an additional burden on already vulnerable households. Households affected by HIV/AIDS were found to have less income, reduced food security and increased vulnerability. HIV/AIDS destabilises reciprocity by taking resources that could have been invested in mutual relations. Access to social networks is also fraught with difficulty due to the stigmatising nature of HIV/AIDS infection. As Formal or informal social networks are built in and embedded in the prevailing power structures in a community, the benefits of participation are unequally distributed between gender and among households. With limited formal and informal support options, affected individuals have to rely increasingly on immediate family members, mainly women. Unlike the idealized community solidarity, many households appear unable to cope with HIV/AIDS impacts and other crises. Community members fail to offer assistance due to other systemic barriers in the community such as wide-spread poverty, witchcraft accusations and tribal diversity. The systemic effects of HIV/AIDS epidemic on social capital needs to be taken into account when designing community responses. In recognition that the ability of households and communities to meet their members’ increasing needs is limited, there is a need for external support from government and NGOs to help communities respond to other shocks and new demands created by HIV/AIDS impacts.

Developing new social relations to mitigate impacts of HIV/AIDS