Suneetha Kadiyala, a Senior Lecturer at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and Rahul Rawat, a Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), describe the dangerous interaction between food insecurity and HIV/AIDS in this excellent Scientific American article. Suneetha and Rahul highlight their research on food insecurity among people living with HIV infection in Uganda, including an analysis we conducted demonstrating that poor diet quality is associated with low CD4 count and predicts mortality among antiretroviral therapy-naive HIV-positive adults. They also argue for livelihood programs which have the potential to sustainably support care and treatment programs and mitigate the negative household and community-level impacts of HIV/AIDS.
Cash, Food, or Vouchers? →
What's the best way to reduce hunger, improve food security, and improve a variety of other health and welfare outcomes? Despite decades of debate about the relative merits of food, cash, or voucher assistance, the most rigorous study ever conducted on the subject finds that there is no one "right" transfer modality. Led by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the randomized experiment was conducted in Ecuador, Uganda, Niger, and Yemen from 2010–2012 and compared the effects of food baskets, cash transfers, and supermarket vouchers. The bottoms line: there's no one-size-fits-all approach to aid.
Researchers found that the relative effectiveness of different modalities depends heavily on contextual factors such as the severity of food insecurity and the thickness of markets for grains and other foods. Furthermore, in three countries cash had the largest impact on dietary diversity, whereas in two countries food had the largest impact on calories available for consumption. The one universal finding: Cash assistance was always significantly more cost-effective to deliver. Watch the IFPRI-WFP Seminar on the study here.
World Food Programme Support for Vulnerable Families in Zimbabwe →
Read a short report about nutritional support provided by the World Food Programme (WFP) to AIDS-affected and other vulnerable families in Zimbabwe. After nutritional assessment, clients at local clinics meeting the criteria for assistance are referred to WFP and their implementing partners and receive Super Cereal, a nutritious fortified blend of maize meal, soya protein and micronutrients. They also get a monthly household ration of maize meal, vegetable oil and pulses. Some types of food assistance programs, similar to this one in Zimbabwe, have been shown to increase adherence to antiretroviral therapy among people living with HIV infection. Read more about WFP's HIV/AIDS-related programs here.