ECIAfrica

Projects

Boosting incomes and improving vitality among women confronting the AIDS pandemic

HIV/AIDS mitigation remains high on Ethiopia's development agenda. The national response to AIDS is informed by the Millennium Development Goals needs assessment and is based on the overall goal of universal access to HIV prevention, care, and support service. Ethiopians living with HIV/AIDS face challenges such as poor access to care and support services, and few receive life-prolonging antiretroviral drugs. More than 350,000 AIDS orphans live in Ethiopia. There is a pressing need to scale-up comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment programmes as well as address the nutritional status and income-generation needs of AIDS-affected households.

Women are particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS because of biological, social, and cultural factors. The risk of infection is further exacerbated by gender inequalities and sexual violence. Women care for the sick and dying, girls are pulled out of school when the financial effects of HIV/AIDS are felt by the household, and widows face immense challenges in providing for their families due to their limited access to capital inputs, capacity building, and markets.

UAPHAW is designed to address these concerns. Since 2004, ECIAfrica has served as a key subcontractor to DAI on this project, with the following objectives:

Improve the nutritional status of HIV/AIDS-affected families;
Improve the income levels of these families through sales of surplus garden crops; and
Improve the skills and alternative livelihood possibilities of HIV-affected women and orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs).

The project provides assistance in the establishment of low-cost, low-labour-intensive household nutrition gardens using simple micro drip irrigation technology to low-income HIV/AIDS-infected and -affected women and OVCs. In its first phase, the programme was implemented in Addis Ababa and Bahir Dar; 4,882 HIV-infected and -affected women and OVCs established gardens, and 20,000 people benefited from them. In the second phase, the programme has expanded its scope and geographic coverage to assist 6,118 women and OVCs, benefiting about 25,000 people.

These gardens are particularly relevant to the target groups because they require half the water of conventional bucket water methods and half the labour, enabling the young and the elderly to participate. Combined with appropriate training, organisation, and market linkages, these urban gardening systems generate food for household consumption as well as surplus for income generation.

Ethiopia

June 2004 - June 2008

Client:

U.S. Agency for International Development Ethiopia

Contact:

Juliana Rwelamira

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