Today is World AIDS Day, dedicated to fighting the epidemic. The theme this year is Live and let live, which highlights the need to combat stigma and discrimination surrounding HIV/AIDS. The UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, in his World AIDS Day message, calls for HIV/AIDS to be kept at the top of political and practical agendas.

“This is why we must continue to speak openly about AIDS,” Mr Annan says. “No progress will be achieved by being timid, refusing to face unpleasant facts, or prejudging our fellow human beings – still less by stigmatizing people living with HIV/AIDS.”

AIDS and rural poverty

HIV/AIDS is a global crisis. Ten people are infected every minute of every day, 95% of them in developing countries. In the hardest hit areas, life expectancy is plummeting. AIDS is the number one killer in Africa and the number four killer worldwide.
Although Africa remains the worst-affected region, the epidemic is spreading rapidly in other parts of the world, particularly Eastern Europe and Russia, and throughout Asia. AIDS is a crisis with severe socio-economic repercussions, particularly in rural areas of developing countries, where poverty is both worsened by the disease and is a key factor in its transmission in that it increases the possibility that people will be at risk. AIDS is a social disease that reflects local conditions, characterized by fragile rural economies, high migration of men and lack of social power of women.

AIDS is a serious obstacle to development. It strikes young adults just as they are about to enter their most productive years, robs children of their parents, or forces them to drop out of school, leaving a generation without care or education. In rural areas, the impact is devastating. Rural poverty is deepened as families are forced to sell their assets to care for the sick and to compensate for lost income. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the impact is particularly severe on smallholder farmers, who rely almost exclusively on family labour.

IFAD works in rural areas of developing countries to reduce the causes of the HIV/AIDS crisis and to build resilience to the impact of the disease. Recognizing that HIV/AIDS seriously affects agriculture and rural development, IFAD is addressing the epidemic through its rural investment programmes. Increasingly, IFAD-funded projects are used as platforms from which to fight HIV/AIDS. This is particularly the case in Africa, however IFAD aims eventually to build HIV/AIDS prevention and coping strategies into all of its projects. The emphasis is on strengthening the capacity of communities to respond to the crisis. IFAD has developed an HIV/AIDS strategy to guide its operations in East and Southern Africa.

For example, in Uganda, IFAD is working with a non-governmental organization (NGO) to help foster families of AIDS orphans. The Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO) has been supported since 1995 by an IFAD programme, funded by the Belgian Survival Fund. The focus is on social and economic empowerment, especially through provision of services and training in microcredit and savings.

In Tanzania, IFAD works in partnership with World Vision to help communities, particularly women, young people and foster families, in the Kagera region deal with the impact of the epidemic. The project, funded by the Government of Japan, is the first to build on the experience of the UWESO programme.

Strengthening families’ ability to cope: the Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO)

When her husband died of AIDS, Regina Nankabirwa could not afford rent for a house large enough for her and her eight children in the town of Masaka in southwest Uganda. Without a husband or income, she was forced to move into a small house in the village of Kitante. There she had more land and could grow food to feed her family. She decided to open a small retail shop to generate some income.

Over the next 15 years, AIDS devastated Ms Nankabirwa’s family. She lost brothers and sisters to the disease, and in the tradition of African extended families, she took in all of their children. There are now 18 living under her roof in Kitante.

Fortunately, she has help. Thanks to the Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO), she is able to provide for all those in her care. Supported by IFAD/Belgian Survival Fund Joint Programme, UWESO is a non-profit organization launched in 1986 by Janet Kataha Museveni, wife of the country’s president. The goal of UWESO is: “To improve the quality of life of needy orphans by empowering local communities to meet the social, moral and economic needs of these children.” UWESO now has 36 branches working in 15 districts throughout Uganda. In the Masaka area alone, the organization is helping 1 036 households with a total of 7 404 orphans.

The statistics on orphans in Uganda are staggering. In Uganda, the latest figures show there are more than 880 000 orphans due to AIDS. Most have lost one or both parents to AIDS. Families with five or six children of their own are now looking after as many as 20. UWESO has stepped in to provide help for large households such as Ms Nankabirwa’s, filling a gap left by the breakdown of the traditional family structure.

Ms Nankabirwa joined UWESO in 1997 and received a loan of 100 000 Ugandan shillings (USD 67) to start her business. She has since repaid that loan and two others, and she has just secured her fourth loan from UWESO, this time totalling UGX 200 000. “With UWESO’s help I increased the size of my store and opened a small restaurant,” says Ms Nankabirwa. Most of the vegetables she serves in the restaurant are grown on the land beside her house.
With her profits from the shop and restaurant, Ms Nankabirwa bought two cows and three goats. “The business is doing well,” she says. “Soon, I hope to secure a small piece of land and put up some apartments to rent. My daughter Harriet will run this business.”

Harriet, who is 24, already works for her mother in the restaurant and store. She is evidently a shrewd businesswoman, who can regularly be seen haggling over prices with merchants who have come to sell items to the shop.

UWESO has developed a unique approach to helping people like Harriet and her mother. The organization’s strategy is to alleviate poverty by giving women the money and training they need to start a successful small business. “It is microfinance with a difference,” says UWESO Executive Director Pelucy Ntambirweki. “Banks do not deal with grandmothers and widows. They bombard them with paperwork and want them to write and sign things. We designed savings and credit programmes that work for families in these situations, and we have taught them how to manage, how to use a loan and how to save.”

UWESO’s methods and message are expanding. Membership in the organization has grown to 10 000 volunteers. More than 100 000 orphans across the country have received some form of aid from direct UWESO involvement. This includes help to finance schooling for young orphans and vocational training for adolescents.

However, according to Mrs Ntambirweki, there remains much to do. “We have helped 100 000 children,” she emphasizes, “but despite all of our efforts, that is still only 5% of those in need.”