Transcript Technology Change and Livelihood Security

Crops, Cellphones
and T-Cells:
Technology Change
for Livelihood
Security in Sub
Saharan Africa
Laura Murphy,
Tulane University,
[email protected]
Study 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
Technology 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
Livelihoods and AIDS mitigation
► Infection,
chronic illness,
death = loss of
 Labor, knowledge
 Remittances, wages
 Assets
Burden of care
Orphans (single &
double)
Widows & Child-headed
households
Exclusion, discrimination
Changes in “coping
strategies”:
land use, cropping,
consumption, health
care, mourning, school
enrollment
Need to Mitigate
Impacts of AIDS on
all forms of capital,
vulnerability context
Labor-saving technologies
Food & nutrition
Vulnerable
populations:”OVCs”
Examples from inventory of technology changes surrounding for HIV & AIDS
Prevention
Care & Treatment
Mitigation
Female condom reuse
Homegrown nutrition &
herbal remedies
Conservation agriculture
Rapid HIV test
Manufactured therapeutic
foods
Lightweight farmtools
Disposable syringes
Antiretroviral therapy
Chickens, goats, rabbits
Safewater system
Improved sweet potato
Mobile phone
Mobile phone
Mobile phone
telecenters
Handheld computers &
wireless
telecenters
Razor blade in
circumcision
Home based care kits &
bicycles
Community seed banks
Peer group counseling,
wife inheritance, ABC
Support Groups,
Child mentoring,
mainstreaming, workplace microcredit, multisectoral
policies
programs
Information & Communication Technology (ICTs)
Boda-Boda
(bicycle taxi)
Satellite-internet at
Post Offices in Kenya
Worldspace Radio
Internet access through
Open Knowledge
Network
•PDAs for health
professionals
•Text messaging reminders
& market prices
Mixed methods
Timelines, Participant
Case studies ► Mapping,
observation, in-depth interviews,
focus group discussion, key
informant interviews
Desk review
►
►
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
Findings from
field research
BUNGOMA
SOUTH NYANZA
►
Western Province,
Kenya
►
High prevalence,
generalized
epidemic
►
Lake Victoria,
fishing, TZ/UG
borders, truck
routes, sugar
industry, history
of mobility, wage
work
Suba District, south Nyanza
Sub-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?
Excerpt from Nyapuodi Village Map
30% of 103 HH: HIV+, death,
bed-ridden person, orphans,
Only 1 improved plough
Major loss of livestock to disease
Policy 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
Kakichumma Village, Bungoma
Kakichumma 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
Changes 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
►
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
► 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
Hybrid Systems responding to HIV & AIDS
► New
combinations
 Neglected indigenous leafy
vegetables and new “ProvitA”
enriched sweet potato
► For
“brainwashed” to
grow foreign kale
Maize displaced
millet & sorghum in 1950s
staple food, micronutrients,
income-generation
►
range of HIV & AIDS-affected
Constraints 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
► “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
Appropriate Technology to
combat HIV and AIDS
Diffusion & 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
further conclusions
► HIV/AIDS
is affected
in generalized rural epidemic: everyone
 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
Policy implication (2)
Agency policies
that are donor
driven and single
purpose might
miss the point.
Acknowledgements
► 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
Resources: HIV/AIDS, food and livelihoods
► International
Food Policy Research Institute
 www.ifpri.org
► FANTAproject.org
► Food
(nutrition)
and Agriculture Organization
 www.fao.org/hivaids