Expanding the applicability of environmental assessment in the developing world context : a framework for inegrating HIV/AIDS into environmental impact assessment (original) (raw)
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2002
The World Bank commissioned a feasibility study into the potential for integrating HIV/AIDS issues in to the Environmental Assessment process for development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa. This report represents the findings of the study. Within all sectors, HIV/AIDS impacts on development and is resulting in a retardation of the development process being made in Africa. As a result of this impact on development, there is an imperative to consider HIV/AIDS in World Bank-funded development projects. Less obvious but equally compelling is the potential negative impact of development projects themselves on the transmission of HIV. In recent years, developers have recognized that some projects can lead to the unintentional increase in transmission of HIV because of activities related to the project. Development projects can lead to problems such as increased mobility of people, separation of men from their families, and income inequalities. These factors promote risky sexual behavior t...
Throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, the human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) pandemic is having devastating and tragic social, economic, and political impacts. HIV/AIDS is both a health issue and a development problem, with complex links to rural livelihoods, human capacity, and natural resource conservation. As the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Sub-Saharan Africa has spread, it appears that increased pressure has been placed on the already dwindling forest resources on which vulnerable populations depend. Evidently, forests and the products that they provide may well decrease the vulnerability of rural people by increasing their resilience to HIV/AIDS. Yet, despite decades of research regarding the impacts of HIV/AIDS on rural livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa, the links between HIV/AIDS, vulnerability, resilience, and wild natural capital has largely gone unexplored. Research on the interactions between the use of forest resources and contemporary epidemics in general, and on the environmental dimensions of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in particular, remain surprisingly slim. There has been a dearth of research on the contribution of forest products to the livelihoods of HIV/AIDS affected households; the long-term impacts of people living with HIV/AIDS on the management of forest resources; the impacts of forest degradation and deforestation on human health generally, and people affected by HIV/AIDS specifically; the role of the forest industry and its workers in the spread of HIV/AIDS; and the impacts of the disease on the future of forest management institutions and education. This paper offers a preliminary review and mapping of potential linkages and questions in each of these areas by focusing on three domains of the relationships between HIV/AIDS, forests and forestry: (1) the role of the forest industry (including foresters and truck drivers) in the spread of HIV/AIDS; (2) the interactions between HIV/AIDS-affected households and forest resources; and (3) the impacts of HIV/AIDS-related morbidity and mortality on the future of forestry and forest management institutions.
Population and Environment, 2008
The HIV/AIDS pandemic has had dramatic influence on the demographic dynamics of many of the world's less economically developed regions. Today, an estimated 33 million individuals are living with HIV, and recent data suggest that, every day, over 6800 persons become HIV-infected and over 5700 persons die from AIDS (UNAIDS 2006). The age profile of HIV infection is well known, with new cases impacting primarily prime-age adults. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the world's most affected region with recent population-based surveys suggesting that adult prevalence rates (age 15-49) reaches as high as 25% in Botswana and over 23% in Lesotho (UNAIDS 2006). Still, HIV/AIDS also impacts children, with over 2 million HIV+ individuals under age 15 in sub-Saharan Africa; And the disease profile now includes many individuals over age 50 due to the positive impact on life expectancy of recent treatment advances (UNAIDS 2006). Of course, HIV/AIDS' impacts at the individual and household levels are difficult to discern from aggregate data although ethnographic research provides insights into nuanced household survival strategies (e.g., Evans 2005; Schatz and Ogunmefun 2007). Such work reveals household efforts to maintain a sense of ''normality'' in response to the impacts of HIV/AIDS, otherwise known as ''the disease'' (Bohman et al. 2007).