Title: Crops, Cellphones and TCells: Technology Change for Livelihood Security in Sub Saharan Africa
1Crops, Cellphones and T-Cells Technology Change
for Livelihood Security in Sub Saharan Africa
Laura Murphy, Tulane University,
lmurphy2_at_tulane.edu
2Study questions
- How are African communities affected by HIV and
AIDS actually responding through the adoption,
adaptation, innovation of technologies to enhance
their livelihood security? - How do development policies of governmental and
non-governmental actors facilitate and/or hinder
community-based technology innovation for
livelihood security? - Funded by the John D and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation
3Technology change ?? HIV/AIDS
- Technology adoption, adaptation, innovation
of artefacts systems of knowledge - a Livelihood security framework
- Human, natural, social, physical, capital
- Diverse sources of goods, services
- Prevention, Treatment Care, Mitigation
4Livelihoods and AIDS mitigation
- Infection, chronic illness, death loss of
- Labor, knowledge
- Remittances, wages
- Assets
Changes in coping strategies land use,
cropping, consumption, health care, mourning,
school enrollment
Burden of care Orphans (single double) Widows
Child-headed households Exclusion, discrimination
Need to Mitigate Impacts of AIDS on all forms of
capital, vulnerability context
Labor-saving technologies Food nutrition
Vulnerable populationsOVCs
5Examples from inventory of technology changes
surrounding for HIV AIDS
6Information Communication Technology (ICTs)
Satellite-internet at Post Offices in Kenya
Boda-Boda (bicycle taxi)
Worldspace Radio Internet access through Open
Knowledge Network
- PDAs for health professionals
- Text messaging reminders market prices
7Mixed methods
- Mapping, Timelines, Participant observation,
in-depth interviews, focus group discussion, key
informant interviews - Agency reports, email, field reports of
technology changes - Secondary data on farm production, wage work,
sugar industry, HlV/AIDS surveillance, IEC, VCT,
HBC, ART programs
Case studies
Desk review
8Findings from field research
- Western Province, Kenya
- High prevalence, generalized epidemic
- Lake Victoria, fishing, TZ/UG borders, truck
routes, sugar industry, history of mobility, wage
work
BUNGOMA
SOUTH NYANZA
9Suba District, south Nyanza
10Sub-question for land abundant south Nyanza
Are labor-saving Animal Traction implements the
answer to loss of labor due to AIDS?
Rumpstad Multipurpose Lightweight Implement
(plough, weed, ridge) Drawn by donkey or
oxen Does it meet needs of AIDS-affected
communities?
11Excerpt from Nyapuodi Village Map
30 of 103 HH HIV, death, bed-ridden person,
orphans,
Only 1 improved plough Major loss of livestock to
disease
12Policy implication (1)
- Tsetse fly trypanosomiasis control will help
mitigate AIDS - Conservation policies (Ruma National Park)
conflict with human and livestock health - Traps removed, bush cover (habitat) remains
13Kakichumma Village, Bungoma
14Kakichumma Village
- Population 2005 350 households, 2800
- HIV/AIDS
- Arrived in 1991, widespread
- about 30 directly affected, others indirectly
- Poverty thatch roofs, no hoe, no blankets
- Remote no bus, phone, electricity, extension
services, official visits - One NGO (ACE) active, some HBC training
- Health center 5 miles away (foot) hospital
(ART) in Bungoma town
15(No Transcript)
16Changes in Gardens w/ HIV / AIDS concerns
- Plants
- Diversity of herbs, shrubs, grasses, trees,
tubers, legumes - knowledge intensive (traditional and modern)
- Techniques
- Pile vs. pit composting, intercropping, terracing
- Conservation agriculture
- Permaculture, organic
17- Use Hand Tools
- Hoes (jembes)
- Machete/pangas
- maybe shovels, pickaxe, occasional ox-plow
- Storage, Processing, Cooking
- Non-chemical preservation
- Nutritional Supplements ? IGA
- Seed bulking banks
18- New adopters and innovators
- chronically ill, HIV , orphans and vulnerable
children, caregivers - New uses
- social support, nutrition
- social structures norms
- community organization for land, labor,
distribution - School clubs
19Hybrid Systems responding to HIV AIDS
- New combinations
- Neglected indigenous leafy vegetables and new
ProvitA enriched sweet potato - For staple food, micronutrients,
income-generation - range of HIV AIDS-affected
brainwashed to grow foreign kale
Maize displaced millet sorghum in 1950s
20Constraints to rural garden technology change
- (the right) Seeds and Planting Material in short
supply - Water In the wrong place, wrong time
- Tools inadequate, worn, lacking
- Technical information scarce
- Labor time
- Policy implications
- Seed bulking
- Soil Water conservation
- Agricultural Mechanization
- SAP cutbacks? Demand-driven extension services
- Social safety nets
- Silence among leaders, delayed response
- Multisectoral programs
21- Appropriate technology to combat HIV and AIDS
is wide-ranging - Not only labor-saving often capital intensive
(animal traction) - more intelligent use of labor, more productive,
multi-purpose outputs - hoes cellphones, drip irrigation HAART
- Drudgery reduction, home based care
22Appropriate Technology to combat HIV and AIDS
23Diffusion Adaptation
- Social Networks
- NGOS like ACE ? trainees, friends, opinion
leaders, neighbors - Mobility Remittances ? cash, ideas infusion
- Constant adaptation, rejection, recombination
- Constant recovery of old, and infusion of new
- Rural innovations abound
- Development, globalization, HIV/AIDS all bring
challenges and opportunities - Information, better nutrition, Anti-retroviral
therapy - Polarization and intensification of poverty
- material goods, labor, cash, land, hope
24further conclusions
- HIV/AIDS in generalized rural epidemic everyone
is affected - through networks and interconnections
- Cumulative burden over time, prevention not
enough - Eager to talk and learn
- Household-level AIDS affected measures used in
studies are inadequate - chronically ill , presence of orphans
- Cumulative effects, missing, dissolved
- need to view community as a whole over time
25Policy implication (2)
Agency policies that are donor driven and single
purpose might miss the point.
26Acknowledgements
- Action in the Community environment (ACE Africa),
Bungoma - Animal Draft Power Programme (ADPP), Homa Bay
- Residents of Nyapuodi Village
- Residents of Kakichumma Village
- Paul Harvey, co-investigator, ODI
27Resources HIV/AIDS, food and livelihoods
- International Food Policy Research Institute
- www.ifpri.org
- FANTAproject.org (nutrition)
- Food and Agriculture Organization
- www.fao.org/hivaids