Your daily Selection of IRIN Africa PlusNews reports, 11/16/2006

[Guest guest]

U N I T E D N A T I O N S

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) -

[These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENT:

1 - ZIMBABWE: Five year plan to battle HIV/AIDS on farms launched

1 - ZIMBABWE: Five year plan to battle HIV/AIDS on farms launched

HARARE, 16 November (PLUSNEWS) - Zimbabwe's government is launching a five-year

plan to combat HIV/AIDS in the agricultural sector after realising the impact of

the pandemic on farming.

The initiative, 'Zimbabwe Agricultural Sector Strategy on HIV and AIDS ' -

coordinated by the agriculture ministry, with support by the UN Food and

Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and other nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) -

is seeking to mobilise financial and human resources to halt the spread of the

disease on farms, reduce stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS, fight

gender inequality and domestic violence, and facilitate treatment for infected

people.

The agriculture ministry, which concedes that it has lacked a clear policy on

HIV/AIDS, intends to establish an agricultural management information system to

monitor various issues related to health and service delivery, and accurately

assess the cost of HIV/AIDS to farming communities and the extent to which

farmworkers and agricultural-sector employees are vulnerable to the disease.

According to the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey, 18.1 percent of

sexually active adult people in a population of about 11.5 million are infected

with HIV - the sixth highest prevalence in the world.

" HIV and AIDS is affecting personnel from the agricultural sub-sectors, that is,

the ministry of agriculture and its departments, the parastatals under the

ministry, private-sector providers, the farming community and agri-business.

Therefore, the integrity of the sector should be protected against the impact of

HIV and AIDS. In the absence of a strategy, the agricultural-sector response to

HIV and AIDS has been erratic and uncoordinated, " the ministry said in a

statement.

Vulnerability in the agriculture sector was heightened by factors such as worker

migrations during harvests, which led to long periods away from their families

when they often stayed at centres that " have been identified as hotspots for HIV

infection " .

" The Ministry of Agriculture and its departments, parastatals and commercial

farms have experienced an increase in absenteeism of staff due to illness,

attendance of funerals and the need to care for the sick, " the ministry

commented.

More disturbingly, there has been a " decline in crop varieties, and changes in

cropping patterns, as high labour-demanding cash crops may be abandoned " , with

subsistence farmers being forced to sell cattle and donkeys used for draught

power to meet care and treatment expenses.

Around 70 percent of the population depends on agriculture, which provides more

than 60 percent of the raw materials used in the manufacturing sector and

contributes up to 45 percent of the country's exports.

Low literacy levels in farming communities, caused by a shortage of farm

schools, made it difficult to communicate anti-AIDS messages effectively, while

" poor housing conditions on commercial farms and in research station compounds

result in overcrowding and a breakdown of social norms, ... [which] encourages

risky sexual behaviour. "

Government's response to HIV/AIDS in the sector has been limited to appointing

people to a few positions in the agriculture ministry's headquarters in the

capital, Harare, and provincial offices, who merely hand out condoms and basic

information without any clear strategy.

The fight against HIV/AIDS in agriculture has been carried out mainly by

community-based nongovernmental organisations, farmers' unions and HIV/AIDS

service organisations, some of whom have established nutrition and herbal

gardens, and community fields for infected and affected people.

Gift Muti, deputy secretary-general of the General Agricultural and Plantation

Workers Union (GAPWUZ), which represents some of Zimbabwe's 400,000 farmworkers,

welcomed the " positive " initiative, but cited poverty as one of the main reasons

for the spread of HIV/AIDS.

" From even before independence [in 1980], farm workers have tended to be poorly

paid and live in abject poverty. This makes it easy for them to be infected

because women are easily forced into prostitution, while sex is the main source

of entertainment, since farm owners only provide them with beerhalls, " Muti told

IRIN.

Muti, whose poorly funded organisation distributes food to sick farmworkers,

said it was common for girls younger than 18 years to marry, while divorce and

extra-marital affairs were run of the mill among farmworkers.

Since the government launched its fast-track land reform programme in 2000, in

which farmland was redistributed from white farmers to landless blacks,

Zimbabwe's economy has gone into freefall. An annual inflation rate hovering

around 1,000 percent has seen unemployment rise above 70 percent, while

shortages of foreign currency have caused food, fuel and electricity to become

scarce commodities.

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PLUSNEWS

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Fax: +27 11 784-6759

Email: Mail@...

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Subscriber: AIDS treatments

[Guest guest]

U N I T E D N A T I O N S

Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN) -

[These reports do not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENT:

1 - ZIMBABWE: Five year plan to battle HIV/AIDS on farms launched

1 - ZIMBABWE: Five year plan to battle HIV/AIDS on farms launched

HARARE, 16 November (PLUSNEWS) - Zimbabwe's government is launching a five-year

plan to combat HIV/AIDS in the agricultural sector after realising the impact of

the pandemic on farming.

The initiative, 'Zimbabwe Agricultural Sector Strategy on HIV and AIDS ' -

coordinated by the agriculture ministry, with support by the UN Food and

Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and other nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) -

is seeking to mobilise financial and human resources to halt the spread of the

disease on farms, reduce stigma against people living with HIV/AIDS, fight

gender inequality and domestic violence, and facilitate treatment for infected

people.

The agriculture ministry, which concedes that it has lacked a clear policy on

HIV/AIDS, intends to establish an agricultural management information system to

monitor various issues related to health and service delivery, and accurately

assess the cost of HIV/AIDS to farming communities and the extent to which

farmworkers and agricultural-sector employees are vulnerable to the disease.

According to the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey, 18.1 percent of

sexually active adult people in a population of about 11.5 million are infected

with HIV - the sixth highest prevalence in the world.

" HIV and AIDS is affecting personnel from the agricultural sub-sectors, that is,

the ministry of agriculture and its departments, the parastatals under the

ministry, private-sector providers, the farming community and agri-business.

Therefore, the integrity of the sector should be protected against the impact of

HIV and AIDS. In the absence of a strategy, the agricultural-sector response to

HIV and AIDS has been erratic and uncoordinated, " the ministry said in a

statement.

Vulnerability in the agriculture sector was heightened by factors such as worker

migrations during harvests, which led to long periods away from their families

when they often stayed at centres that " have been identified as hotspots for HIV

infection " .

" The Ministry of Agriculture and its departments, parastatals and commercial

farms have experienced an increase in absenteeism of staff due to illness,

attendance of funerals and the need to care for the sick, " the ministry

commented.

More disturbingly, there has been a " decline in crop varieties, and changes in

cropping patterns, as high labour-demanding cash crops may be abandoned " , with

subsistence farmers being forced to sell cattle and donkeys used for draught

power to meet care and treatment expenses.

Around 70 percent of the population depends on agriculture, which provides more

than 60 percent of the raw materials used in the manufacturing sector and

contributes up to 45 percent of the country's exports.

Low literacy levels in farming communities, caused by a shortage of farm

schools, made it difficult to communicate anti-AIDS messages effectively, while

" poor housing conditions on commercial farms and in research station compounds

result in overcrowding and a breakdown of social norms, ... [which] encourages

risky sexual behaviour. "

Government's response to HIV/AIDS in the sector has been limited to appointing

people to a few positions in the agriculture ministry's headquarters in the

capital, Harare, and provincial offices, who merely hand out condoms and basic

information without any clear strategy.

The fight against HIV/AIDS in agriculture has been carried out mainly by

community-based nongovernmental organisations, farmers' unions and HIV/AIDS

service organisations, some of whom have established nutrition and herbal

gardens, and community fields for infected and affected people.

Gift Muti, deputy secretary-general of the General Agricultural and Plantation

Workers Union (GAPWUZ), which represents some of Zimbabwe's 400,000 farmworkers,

welcomed the " positive " initiative, but cited poverty as one of the main reasons

for the spread of HIV/AIDS.

" From even before independence [in 1980], farm workers have tended to be poorly

paid and live in abject poverty. This makes it easy for them to be infected

because women are easily forced into prostitution, while sex is the main source

of entertainment, since farm owners only provide them with beerhalls, " Muti told

IRIN.

Muti, whose poorly funded organisation distributes food to sick farmworkers,

said it was common for girls younger than 18 years to marry, while divorce and

extra-marital affairs were run of the mill among farmworkers.

Since the government launched its fast-track land reform programme in 2000, in

which farmland was redistributed from white farmers to landless blacks,

Zimbabwe's economy has gone into freefall. An annual inflation rate hovering

around 1,000 percent has seen unemployment rise above 70 percent, while

shortages of foreign currency have caused food, fuel and electricity to become

scarce commodities.

fm/go/he/oa

[ENDS]

Your input is important. Please complete our annual survey at

http://www.irinnews.org/readership_survey.aspThis is non-reply e-mail. Please do

not hesitate to contact us at Mail@....

Principal donors: IRIN is generously supported by Australia, Canada, Denmark,

ECHO, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and

the United States of America. For more information, go to:

http://www.IRINnews.org/donors

[This item comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian news and information

service, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its

agencies. All IRIN material may be reposted or reprinted free-of-charge; refer

to the copyright page (Http://www.irinnews.org/copyright ) for conditions of

use. IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian

Affairs.]

PLUSNEWS

Tel: +27 11 895-1900

Fax: +27 11 784-6759

Email: Mail@...

To make changes to or cancel your subscription visit:

http://www.irinnews.org/subscriptions

Subscriber: AIDS treatments