African ag co-ops leading
fight against HIV/AIDS
By Susan G. Schram,
Vice President
Ag & Co-op Programs, ACDI/VOCA
Editor’s note: See ACDI/VOCA’s
2003 “World Report” for more on this and
related international aid efforts at
www.acdivoca.org.
CDI/VOCA is helping
agricultural cooperatives
play a critical role in the
fight against HIV/AIDS
around the world, particularly
in Ethiopia and Malawi.
Cooperatives are well suited to serving
as conduits for delivering information,
training and technical assistance to
farmers and their families. Co-op members
represent a significant proportion
of the agricultural labor force in rural
communities. As democratically governed,
member-based institutions, coops
help determine their own solutions
to problems, use their own resources
and can work in partnership with community-based health organizations to
bring education and change to hard-toreach
areas.
The productivity of the agricultural
labor force is the lifeblood of developing
countries, particularly in Africa. Broadbased
food security and prospects for
economic growth depend largely on the
health of the agriculture sector. But in
many developing countries, the
HIV/AIDS pandemic is devastating
smallholder farms, diverting assets from
food production and changing conditions
from surplus to subsistence, or
even shortage.
ACDI/VOCA’s Agricultural
Cooperatives in Ethiopia (ACE) program
program
has undertaken a three-year
awareness and prevention initiative to
address the severe human resource and
capital impact of HIV/AIDS on cooperatives.
In Ethiopia, current infection
rates are estimated at 7 percent of the
population, but in high-risk groups rates
are as high as 50 percent.
Ethiopian farmers interviewed prior
to the program reported that, although
they had heard of HIV/AIDS on the
radio and through the church, they had
never received any direct training.
Although they knew condoms could
prevent HIV, they said, they had never
seen one.
The number of infected family
members returning home for care
and support is increasing, but poor
rural families typically lack the assets
and the ability to look after the ill.
ACDI/VOCA’s ACE program will
help cooperatives create, implement
and monitor sustainable HIV/AIDS
mitigation activities prioritized by
their members.
To carry out this program,
ACDI/VOCA-Ethiopia has teamed
with DKT, a social marketing organization
with expertise in
HIV/AIDS. The program will use a
“train the trainer” approach, using
cooperative bureau promoters and
key cooperative union staff. Twentyfive
cooperative unions will receive
training.
The unions will then implement
a comprehensive HIV/AIDS awareness
and prevention program in
their respective 399 primary co-ops,
reaching a total family member population
of 2.5 million. In addition to
development of training materials,
condoms will be made available for
sale in cooperative shops, and
mobile resource centers will host
frank discussions with question and answer
sessions. Music and drama
will be used to convey health messages
and literature will be made available.
ACDI/VOCA helped establish the
National Smallholder Farmers’
Association of Malawi (NASFAM),
which today has 100,000 members.
NASFAM is using its well-honed outreach
capacity to spread information
regarding HIV/AIDS. Issues related to
the disease are discussed at general
meetings, and labor-saving farming
techniques are promoted to counteract
family labor losses.
Each issue of NASFAM’s monthly
newsletter, “Titukulane,” devotes a page
to HIV/AIDS, arming local groups with
accurate information and encouraging
them to abstain from risky sexual behavior
and to help infected group members
with their farming enterprises. More
women are joining NASFAM and they
will be able to benefit from this life-saving
information.
It has been said that the best existing
vaccine for HIV/AIDS may be empowering
women. UNAIDS estimates that
infection rates among young women in
Africa are three to five times higher than
among men in the same age group.
Mounting HIV/AIDS programs that
effectively reach rural people will
require long-term, results-based cooperation
between the health and agriculture
sectors in developing countries, and
within and among international development
organizations. The rural populations
of nations hard-hit by
HIV/AIDS are critical to this effort,
both because they constitute a vital food
production resource and because if
their means of livelihood is undermined
migration to already overstressed
cities may result.
Cooperatives represent a readymade,
proven conduit to hard-toreach
rural people as well as a means
to communicate their needs back to
government, civil service agencies,
community organizations and others
that serve them.
