Document Type

AFSUN Urban Food Security Series

Publication Date

2011

Department

Balsillie School of International Affairs

Abstract

Considerable attention has been devoted to the impact of the HIV and AIDS epidemic on small farmers and the food security of the rural poor. Despite the rapid progression of the epidemic in rural areas, it remains an ever-growing challenge in the continent’s rapidly-growing cities where prevalence rates are still higher than in rural areas. This report examines the reciprocal relationship between HIV and urban food security. Much of the research and most of the policy interventions on the HIV-Urban Food Security Nexus focus on the nutritional status of individual People Living With HIV (PLHIV). Other members of households with PLHIV also experience an increase in food insecurity as household purchasing power declines and nutritional needs increase. Urban food insecurity is a complex phenomenon and nutritional research and interventions on the vicious circle of HIV and nutrition need to be reframed within a broader socio-economic perspective that encompasses all of the various aspects of urban food security.

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