Agroforestry responses to HIV/AIDS in East and Southern Africa: proceedings of the HIV/AIDS workshop held in Nairobi 2003

The World Agroforestry Centre organized a workshop on ‘Agroforestry Responses to HIV/AIDS in Eastern and Southern Africa’ from 15-16 December 2003, at its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. A total of 52 persons from 28 organizations and 5 countries participated in the workshop, including 19 ICRAF staff based in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda. Participants represented a range of disciplines (medicine, traditional healing, nutrition, agriculture, law, forestry, agroforestry, social work, and economics) and stakeholders (donors, foundations, university educationists, tradi - tional healers, community-based organizations, non-governmental organizations, international agencies). The workshop aimed to (a) understand the links between agroforestry and HIV/AIDS, (b) identify agroforestry strategies that should be “scaled up” through programmes of extension, area-based development, and targeted relief, (c) identify research issues and approaches to be undertaken in order to keep agro - forestry relevant in situations of high HIV/AIDS prevalence, and (d) identify key part - ners and opportunities for new projects. Five roles for agroforestry were identified: (1) enhancing the natural asset base of at-risk households and communities to improve their ability to mitigate the effects of chronic illness and death; (2) improving nutri - tion and boosting immune responses to HIV/AIDS infections; (3) improving treatment of opportunistic infections through medicinal plant products; (4) generating income with limited inputs of labour and management; (5) replacing products that otherwise would be purchased or gathered from afar

---

• View source