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UNDER CONSTRUCTION
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Foreword
UNDER CONSTRUCTION
CONTENT
1. INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 National Responses towards HIV/AIDS 1
1.2 Agricultural Sector Responses to HIV/AIDS: 1997 – 2005 2
1.3 The need for an Agricultural Sector HIV/AIDS Strategy 3
2. THE TANZANIAN AGRICULTURAL SECTOR 4
2.1 Introduction 4
2.2 The Institutional framework for the Agriculture Sector 5
3. HIV/AIDS CHALLENGES FOR THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR 8
4. THE AGRICULTURAL SECTOR HIV/AIDS STRATEGY 11
4.1 Goal and Objectives 11
4.2 Guiding Principles 11
4.3 Strategic Priorities 12
Priority Area 1: Support to Orphans 13
Priority Area 2: Empowering Rural Widows 14
Priority Area 3: Labour-saving Technologies and Practices 14
Priority Area 4: Increasing Disposable Income and Assets 15
Priority Area 5: Improving Food and Nutrition Security 16
Priority Area 6: Strengthen Social Community Support 16
Priority Area 7: Prevention of Property Grabbing 17
Priority Area 8: Capacity Building of ASLM Technical Staff 18
Priority Area 9: Action-oriented Impact and Mitigation Research 18
5. MANAGEMENT 19
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
AIDS Acquired Immunity Deficiency Syndrome
ASDP Agriculture Sector Development Programme
ASDS Agriculture Sector Development Strategy
ASLM Agriculture Sector Line Ministries
ASTAC Agricultural Sector Technical AIDS Committee
CBO Community Based Organization
DAC Donor AID Coordination
DADP District Agriculture Development Programme
DDP District Development Plan
ESRF Economic and Social Research Foundation
HBS Household Budget Survey
HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization
IGA Income Generating Activity
LGA Local government Authorities
MAFS Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security
MCM Ministry of Cooperatives and Marketing
MKUKUTA Mkakati wa Kukuza Uchumi na Kuondoa Umaskini Taifa (NSGRP)
MTEF Medium Term Expenditure Framework
MWLD Ministry of Water and Livestock Development
NACP National AIDS Control Programme
NGO Non-Government Organization
NSGRP National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty
OVC Orphans and vulnerable children
PLWHA People Living with HIV/AIDS
PO-RALG President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government
PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, see also NSGRP and MKUKUTA
STI Sexually Transmitted Infection
TACAIDS Tanzania Commission for AIDS
USAID United States Agency for International Development
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 National Responses towards HIV/AIDS
Since the first three AIDS cases were reported in Tanzania in 1983, the epidemic has spread at an alarming pace. The most recent data estimates the national prevalence of HIV infection among sexually active adults aged 15 and above at about 8.8 percent. According to the Government of Tanzania (GOT), by 2003, a total of 18 929 AIDS cases were reported to the National AIDS Control Programme in the mainland, and 75% of these were in the productive working age of 15-49. This resulted into a cumulative total of 157 173 reported cases since the first cases were identified in the country. On the basis of the estimation that only one in five AIDS cases is reported, a cumulative total of 785 865 AIDS cases is estimated since the beginning of the epidemic in Tanzania mainland[1]. Further, as early as 2001, approximately 800,000 children under age 15 had lost one or both parents to AIDS. In heavily affected areas, such as Iringa, about 21% of children enrolled in schools between the ages of 5 and 14 are orphaned.
The Government of Tanzania has been responding towards HIV/AIDS since 1983. In the early years, the focus was on the medical side of the disease and the initiatives consisted of developing plans, policies and strategies to prevent, control and mitigate the impact of the pandemic. During the Second Medium Term Plan (MTP II 1992- 1996) a National AIDS Committee (NAC) with National AIDS Control Program (NACP) was formed to play a leadership role in the control of HIV/AIDS in the country.
Towards the end of 1999, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania, Honourable Benjamin William Kappa, declared the HIV/AIDS epidemic a “national disaster,” and called on the entire nation, including the government, political, religious and civic leaders, and non-governmental organizations, to focus on the importance of taking measures to put the nation at war against HIV/AIDS.
Since then, the Tanzanian government has demonstrated a growing political commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS. First, the Government recognized the multi-sectoral dimensions of the pandemic and created the Tanzanian Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS) in 2000, and located it in the Office of the Prime Minister, to provide an accelerated, multi-sectoral response to the escalating epidemic by the highest levels of Government.
By 2001, the GOT adopted its first National Policy on HIV/AIDS to provide a national framework for responding to the epidemic. By early 2003, under the leadership of TACAIDS, Tanzania had put into place its first National Multi-Sectoral Strategic Framework on HIV/AIDS (2003-07), which stressed the need to address four main thematic areas: prevention, care and support, mitigation of socio-economic impacts, and cross-cutting issues including advocacy, stigma, and discrimination.
The government has taken other important steps to make HIV/AIDS a high priority. The GOT regularly allocates funds in its annual budgets to central, regional, and district government agencies to respond to the epidemic. It also funds civil society groups to provide information and services to reduce transmission and to care for persons living with HIV/AIDS.
Further, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) of the Government of Tanzania developed in 2000, outlined a focus on efforts aimed at (1) reducing income poverty; (2) improving human capabilities, survival and social well-being; and (3) containing extreme vulnerability among the poor. HIV/AIDS is listed as one of the seven priority sectors of the PRSP and the expenditure on HIV/AIDS was planned to increase dramatically from 1999 to 2003.
Specific priorities relating to HIV/AIDS for the next five years, as outlined in the poverty reduction strategy progress report, include:
(1) preventing the further spread of the epidemic and, in particular, reducing the number of new infections among youth;
(2) reducing HIV transmission from mother to child;
(3) ensuring that care and treatment are available for all who need it;
(4) reducing stigma and discrimination and protecting the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS;
(5) delivering scientific breakthroughs; and
(6) protecting the most vulnerable populations, especially children.
The 2005-2010 National Strategy for Growth and Reduction of Poverty (Mkakati wa Kukuza Uchumi na Kuondo Umaskini Taifa in Kiswahili and referred to as MKUKUTA) builds on the PRSP and emphasizes the Government’s renewed commitment to “reducing poverty, hunger, diseases, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women“. The MKUKUTA continues to highlight the manner in which the disease demonstrates imbalances in gender relations, negatively impacts the income generation capabilities of rural (and urban) families, erodes productivity, reduces labour availability, undermines natural resource management, and increases poverty.
Other notable achievements have been made by the GOT and its development partners, as indicated below:
(1) HIV/AIDS has been included in the Public Expenditure Review (PER) and the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF).
(2) HIV/AIDS is a top agenda in the government and Donor AID Coordination (DAC) meetings and a special DAC HIV/AIDS group has been formed to work with government to address HIV/AIDS issues.
(3) Advocacy and sensitization workshops and seminars for religious leaders, civil- military alliance and workplace interventions have been or are being undertaken. (4) HIV/AIDS/STI surveillance is carried out and reported annually by the National AIDS Control Programme under the Ministry of Health.
(5) HIV/AIDS activities have been mainstreamed in the recurring budgets of most sectors.
1.2 Agricultural Sector Responses to HIV/AIDS: 1997 – 2005
The agriculture sector has been implementing non-staff measures in HIV/AIDS epidemic prevention and control at least since 1997, originally through the UNAIDS funded “Strengthening AIDS Education and Research in the Agricultural Sector” project. Over the past few years, some funds have also been made available for this purpose from UNDP, GTZ and FAO. Some of the activities undertaken in these years included the following.
· Some 12,600 posters were printed and distributed in Iringa, Mbeya, Ruvuma and Rukwa regions. Also, 80,000 leaflets and 12,000 booklets (UKIMWI NA KILIMO) for extension workers were printed and distributed all over the country.
· Guidelines and other educational materials on HIV/AIDS for extension workers were prepared and distributed.
· Research was carried out on the impact of HIV/AIDS on agriculture in selected areas (i.e. Kyela, Kilombero and Ulanga).
· HIV/AIDS materials (books, journals, magazines, condoms, video cassettes) were purchased and distributed during workshops and seminars
· Awareness creation and sensitization workshops and seminars were conducted for extension workers and community development officers (Iringa and Mbeya townships) and peer health educators (Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions).
Following these successes, and having realized that combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic is the responsibility of every sector and every individual, the agricultural sector has started to allocate its own budget resources to implement HIV/AIDS activities since the 2003/04 MTEF budget. Each department and institution within the sector was asked to plan and assign funds for HIV/AIDS activities. Awareness creation on the spread and control of HIV/AIDS was mandatory training for every department, with specific actions determined by the comparative advantage of the respective departments involved. The overall objective of these actions was to improve services and to try and reduce HIV/AIDS infection rates in the agricultural sector. Over the past few years, activities have included the following:
· conducting educational and sensitization seminars and workshops;
· mainstreaming HIV/AIDS issues in extension services and research activities;
· communicating HIV/AIDS issues through radio programs and IEC materials;
· developing and/or introducing labour saving technologies, planting materials and seeds of high nutritive value for PLWHA and affected families;
· facilitating access to medicines, VCT services, and nutritious foods to PLWHA;
· procuring and distributing condoms;
· ensuring that HIV/AIDS was an agenda item in all sector meetings and programmes;
· undertaking an HIV/AIDS awareness raising campaign during ministerial events such as nanenane, maji, maziwa weeks, and the AWEC and livestock annual meetings; and,
· integrating HIV/AIDS into sector policies such as, for example, the national water policy of 2002 and in the draft document of the livestock breeding policy.
1.3 The need for an Agricultural Sector HIV/AIDS Strategy
In response to the multi-sectoral nature of the epidemic, the National Framework for HIV/AIDS has requested various government ministries to develop sector-specific HIV/AIDS strategies. To this effect and as a first step, the Agricultural Sector Line Ministries (ASLM) developed strategies that deal with ASLM staff members in the respective Ministries. In this regard, suffice it to say here that there is no doubt that all ministry employees need to also be aware of the dangers of HIV/AIDS, and the ASLM and the President’s Office-Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG) are actively addressing the HIV/AIDS issues with their respective staff members. As a second step, and what has been lacking until now is the development of an overarching Agricultural Strategy that would provide a guide for a more systematic approach to dealing with the negative impacts of HIV/AIDS and other related diseases on the agricultural sector as a whole.
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It needs to be stressed that the agricultural sector has a crucial role to play in the prevention, care and mitigation dimensions of the epidemic. For one, agriculture is fundamental to poverty eradication; an important root cause of the epidemic as poverty increases risk to HIV transmission through survival sex, inferior health care and increased labour migration with the associated risk of having multiple partners. For rural men, women and children that are already affected by the epidemic, agriculture can improve their quality of life through good nutrition. Further, agricultural-based mitigation interventions can contribute to the recovering of affected households and achieving a degree of self-sufficiency by transferring agricultural knowledge and entrepreneurial and life skills to rural orphans, promoting access to labour-saving technologies and practices, and improving rural income and food security of affected households.
In the absence of an overarching agricultural sector HIV/AIDS strategy for Tanzania, however, considerable amount of work has been accomplished already regarding the fight against AIDS and related diseases by the ASLM and PO-RALG. Although some of the activities described above have been implemented across large areas of Tanzania, others have been quite local in their distribution. Financial constraints have meant that some activities are stalled or slowed in implementation. The range of activities and their geographical distribution has often reflected the individual interests and knowledge of given ASLM staff members or departments, and have not formed part of an overarching Strategy that entails practical interventions and where positive results can be quickly demonstrated and scaled up to respond to the needs of other communities or situations across Tanzania. Further, although many efforts have been made by the ASLM in countering the devastating effect of the disease on agriculture production and household food security, the sector is neither sufficiently mobilized nor coordinated enough to ensure it significantly contributes to the national fight against HIV/AIDS. Therefore, the Agricultural Sector HIV/AIDS Strategy will help in strengthening and consolidating the ASLM’s efforts in combating HIV/AIDS.
2. THE TANZANIAN AGRICULTURAL SECTOR
2.1 Introduction
In Tanzania, the agricultural sector[2] is the leading sector of the economy and accounts for over half of the GDP annually, and about 60% of foreign exchange earnings. About 80% of the population live and earn their living in rural areas with agriculture as the mainstay of their living. Almost all the food (95-97 percent) consumed in the country is grown locally, and the agricultural sector is the major source of raw materials for local as well as overseas industries.
Likewise the livestock sub-sector is an integral part of Tanzania’s economy and cattle dominate the livestock industry. The contribution of the livestock sector to both agriculture and national gross domestic product is 30% and 6.1%, respectively. The linkages between the Livestock sub-sector and other sectors are also important. Livestock plays an important role in providing income and employment opportunities, mostly in the rural economy, but increasingly in the commercial sector. The potential to increase both livestock production and productivity and its contribution to GDP exists as the land carrying capacity of up to 20 million Livestock Units has not been fully utilized. In addition, Livestock play a crucial role in the household food security as they indirectly support crop production through draught power and manure, they stabilize supply and, finally, they are the most significant source of income and store of wealth for smallholders and thereby provide a reliable source of access to food and overall household food security.