TOOL SHEET 1: IDENTIFICATION & PREPARATION

Key questions

• How is HIV/AIDS an issue in the area? (Consider HIV prevalence, number of orphans, prevalence of opportunistic infections, number of affected households, etc.)
• How is HIV/AIDS recognized as an issue by local people and institutions? (Consider general awareness, as well as policy, programme and project context.)
• What local HIV/AIDS-related knowledge exists and who transmits it? (Consider information related to the recognition of symptoms, home care, local treatment, taboos, myths, etc.)
• Who are the important institutional stakeholders in relation to HIV/AIDS? (List those involved in prevention, care and mitigation of impact. Indicate the level they are operating at; their coverage; their activities relating to nutrition and household food security; their constraints; and their collaborators.)
• Who are the important community stakeholders in relation to HIV/AIDS? (List those involved in prevention, care and mitigation of impact. Indicate who participates in terms of gender, socio-economic status, age, etc.)
• Who is affected by HIV/AIDS, in what ways and why? Consider:
• people (e.g. orphans, the elderly, chronically ill adults, adolescents);
• households (e.g. sex and age of household head, households fostering orphans, socio-economic status, access to assets);
• communities (e.g. urban, peri-urban, rural, access to resources, farming systems, market opportunities);
• institutions (e.g. schools, extension services, health care, orphanages, extended family, community organizations, financial service providers).
• How does HIV/AIDS contribute to poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition?
• How do poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition affect the development of AIDS in people who are HIV-positive?
• How do poverty and food insecurity affect the spread of HIV/AIDS within the community?

How to get answers

• Contact the national and local AIDS committees and meet with informed people in local institutions.
• Make an inventory of organizations, programmes and projects related to HIV/AIDS.
• Review area-specific studies, reports and data using a general and sector-specific checklist for HIV/AIDS-related issues to be considered.
• Organize a workshop with local stakeholders to discuss local food and livelihood security needs. Feature a session on HIV/AIDS and ensure that:
• local organizations working with HIV/AID-affected households are involved;
• if possible, organizations of people living with HIV/AIDS are involved;
• all workshop participants are encouraged to participate in the session.
• When carrying out field appraisals, make sure to identify who is affected by HIV/AIDS, how and why. Ensure that:
• appraisal tools are adapted to capture HIV/AIDS-related issues; local HIV/AIDS-related knowledge, attitudes and practices are considered;
• community-based stakeholders and others reflect on how HIV/AIDS affects them directly and indirectly;
• constraints and opportunities of HIV/AIDS-affected households in achieving nutrition and food security are assessed.
• Design the institutional analysis in such a way as to capture present and future human resource constraints of local institutions and service providers due to HIV/AIDS-related sickness and death.
• When analysing the information from the field appraisal, prepare problem trees showing how different types of people, households, communities and institutions are affected by HIV/AIDS. From these problem trees, develop objective trees and outline intervention strategies that address HIV/AIDS-related problems and opportunities. This approach will also help in developing a set of HIV/AIDS-related process and impact indicators.