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HIV/Aids and land: case studies fromKenya, Lesotho and South AfricaScott DrimiePublished online: 03 Jun 2010.

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Development Southern Africa Vol. 20, No. 5, December 2003

HIV/Aids and land: case studiesfrom Kenya, Lesotho and SouthAfrica

Scott Drimie1

Recent research conducted in Lesotho, Kenya and South Africa has revealed that HIV/Aids willseriously impact on a range of land issues as a direct result of very high infection rates in thesecountries. HIV/Aids will affect different forms of land use, the functioning of land administrationsystems, land rights of women and orphans as well as the poor generally, and inheritancepractices and norms. The epidemic not only affects the productivity of the infected, but alsodiverts the labour of the household and extended family away from other productive andreproductive activities as they take care of the sick. Affected households fall below the social andeconomic threshold of vulnerability and ‘survivability’, leaving the survivors – mainly the youngand elderly – with limited resources to quickly regain a sustainable livelihood. This indicates theimportance of effective land administration systems and of land rights as HIV/Aids impacts onthe terms and conditions on which households and individuals hold, use and transact land. Thishas a particular resonance for women and children’s rights, which, in the context of rural powerrelations that are themselves coming under increasing pressure from the epidemic, are especiallyvulnerable to being usurped. Thus, the impact of HIV/Aids on land raises complex and sensitiveissues for land policies and programmes, particularly if they are intended to underpin ruraldevelopment and sustainable livelihoods.

1. INTRODUCTION

HIV/Aids is the major development issue facing sub-Saharan Africa, as the impact ofthe epidemic will increasingly devastate people’s lives – particularly in the poorer areasof the continent. Loewenson & Whiteside (2001�4) have summarised the implicationsof HIV/Aids for poverty reduction in a background paper prepared for the UnitedNations Development Programme (UNDP):

The devastation caused by HIV/Aids is unique because it is deprivingfamilies, communities and entire nations of their young and most produc-tive people. The epidemic is deepening poverty, reversing human develop-ment achievements, worsening gender inequalities, eroding the ability ofgovernments to maintain essential services, reducing labour productivityand supply, and putting a brake on economic growth. The worseningconditions, in turn, make people and households even more at risk of, orvulnerable to, the epidemic, and sabotage global and national efforts toimprove access to treatment and care.

Although there has been significant research into the impact of HIV/Aids on foodsecurity, nutrition and agricultural productivity, little research has been conducted onits impact on land issues. As a result, the lack of such empirical data has meant thatthe impact of HIV/Aids on land use has not generally been factored into land policiesacross Africa. In response, the Southern African Regional Office of the Food and

1Integrated Rural and Regional Development Research Programme, Human Sciences ResearchCouncil, Pretoria, South Africa.

ISSN 0376-835X print/ISSN 1470-3637 online/03/050647-12 2003 Development Bank of Southern AfricaDOI: 10.1080/0376835032000149289

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Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations commissioned a three-countrystudy into the impact of HIV/Aids on land issues. This empirical research, conductedin Kenya, Lesotho and South Africa, was coordinated by the Human Sciences ResearchCouncil (HSRC) in Pretoria, South Africa.2

This research has confirmed that, as a direct result of very high infection rates in thesouthern and East African region, HIV/Aids will seriously impact on a range of landissues and livelihood strategies. Recent literature draws attention to the fact thatHIV/Aids not only affects the productivity of the infected, but also diverts the labourof the household and extended family away from other productive and reproductiveactivities, as these people take care of the sick. In addition, savings are consumed andassets sold to pay for medical expenses (Ayieko, 1998; Du Guerny, 2001; Mutangaduraet al., 1999; Rugalema, 1999; World Food Programme, 2001). The utilisation ofagricultural land declines as inputs become unaffordable, household labour supply isreduced, and dissipating wealth makes hiring labour difficult. Sooner or later, house-holds fall below the social and economic threshold of vulnerability leaving thesurvivors, mainly the young and elderly, with limited resources to quickly regain asustainable livelihood.

These impacts have implications for different forms of land use, the functioning of landadministration systems, the land rights of women and orphans, as well as the poorgenerally, and for inheritance practices and norms. The findings, therefore, reveal arange of issues that have direct relevance to institutions involved in land and ruraldevelopment.

2. A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: THE IMPACT OF HIV/AIDS ON LANDISSUES

HIV/Aids is one of the largest challenges facing policy makers and practitionersinvolved in the land sector. It will impact on every aspect of management, planning andimplementation of land policy for decades, as well as the social environment in whichthis occurs. The epidemic fundamentally changes all aspects of land policy as it affectsboth the people whom the policy and rural development are intended to benefit, and thepeople staffing the institutions that support the policy implementation. The impact istherefore in both directions.

Each phase of HIV/Aids – asymptomatic; early illness; chronic illness; critical illness;death and survivors – is associated with a different impact, which has differentimplications for land issues. In particular, the category of survivors must be empha-sised. HIV/Aids has a tremendous effect on those left living, as there are many moreaffected than infected people.

The diagram in Figure 1 is a useful tool for the further conceptualisation of howHIV/Aids impacts on different households. Those households with a stronger economic

2The three country studies, including the interview narratives of the South African study, and a rangeof related papers presented at a workshop debating this topic, can be accessed at http://www.sarpn.org.za. The Lesotho study was coordinated and conducted by Matseliso Mphale,Emmanual Rwambali and Mokhantso Makoae, all from the National University of Lesotho. TheKenyan study was coordinated and carried out by Wambui Kiai, Wagaki Mwangi and Eric Bosireof the Forest Action Network, Nairobi. The South African study was coordinated and conductedby a team of researchers of the Integrated Rural and Regional Development Programme of theHSRC. These included Whynie Adams, Michael Aliber, Catherine Cross, Themba Mbhele, SalomeModiselle, Rendani Randela and Khuli Tlabela.

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Figure 1: The effect of HIV/Aids on households’ livelihood strategiesSource: Adapted from Donahue et al. (2000).

safety net and a wider range of options (including land) to draw upon during the crisisare less vulnerable at each stage of the continuum of the disease than their poorercounterparts.

The dotted line in Figure 1 represents the rate of degradation experienced by ahousehold with a stronger economic safety net and a wider range of resources,including rights to land. The solid line represents the rate of economic degradationexperienced by a household with a weaker safety net. The different rates of degradationappear to pivot on the presence or absence of physical assets, business income andaccess to credit, savings or land. It is important to recognise that the impact ofHIV/Aids on rural households is not equal: the poorer ones, especially those with smalland marginal landholdings, are much less able to cope with the effects of HIV/Aidsthan wealthier households who can hire casual labour and are better able to absorbshocks.

Further, the diagram indicates that the situation experienced by a single household alsovaries over time. This knowledge can be used to help identify which specificinterventions can be more useful at various stages of the illness, in order to reducehousehold vulnerability.

When discussing the role of land for households and livelihood strategies affected byHIV/Aids, it is useful to disentangle the term ‘land issues’. In this study, the term wasbroadly understood to include three main dimensions: land use, land rights and landadministration. For the purposes of the article, these interlinked issues were conceptu-alised through the lens of the household. A household is defined as a group of peoplewho live together and provide themselves jointly with food and/or other essentials forliving, or a single person who lives alone. It is understood to be a fluid compositionof individuals with different views and interests.

2.1 Land use

In terms of land use, HIV/Aids-affected households generally have less access tolabour, have less capital to invest in agriculture and are less productive due to limited

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financial and human resources. A range of livelihood strategies, often involving the useof land, have been directly affected as the epidemic compounds issues surroundingpoverty. This has resulted in a number of changes to these strategies, with a variety ofconsequences for rural economies as households fight for survival. Land use is highlysensitive to gender and age: women, the elderly and young people often assume greaterburdens of ensuring household survival, some of whom rely on the land; theysimultaneously take on the burden of caring for the ill.

2.2 Land rights

The focus on land rights considers the extent of the impact of HIV/Aids on the termsand conditions under which households and individuals hold, use and transact land.This has particular implications for women and children’s rights which, in the contextof rural power relations that are themselves coming under increasing pressure from theepidemic, are especially vulnerable to being usurped. The complex relationshipbetween the epidemic and land rights is made more complex through the effects ofother processes, such as increasing land pressure, commercialisation of agriculture,increased investment, and intensifying competition for residential sites.

2.3 Land administration

The dimension of land administration has two aspects. The one is the extent to whichland administration systems – including community-level institutions such as traditionalauthorities and various levels of government – cope with the additional pressures theAids epidemic imposes on the issues of households’ land rights. The other is the directimpact of the disease on the capacity of land administration systems, as the epidemicalso affects those people involved in the institutions dealing with the administration ofland.

3. METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

A similar methodology was used by the three country teams for the research into theimpacts of the epidemic on the land issues discussed above. A literature review of landreform, land tenure, food security, poverty and HIV/Aids was conducted in eachcountry, followed by interviews with representatives from the government, non-govern-mental organisations (NGOs) and local institutions working with HIV/Aids. A partici-patory research method was used in the field, consisting of informal, individualinterviews with traditional authorities, community groups, affected households(identified with the consent of local health workers), farmers and local governmentofficials. Due to time constraints, the interviews in the South African study wererestricted to affected households and community groups.3 Using a semistructuredquestionnaire, a survey was conducted with a minimum of 20 households in twocommunities in all three countries. These in-depth interviews were complemented byfocus group interviews to review preliminary findings.

At this point it should be emphasised that these preliminary studies were intended toraise awareness of the impact of HIV/Aids on land and to provide a basis on whichfurther studies could be developed. In the words of the Kenyan research team, ‘because

3A more detailed account of the methodologies used is described in each of the reports, which areavailable at www.sarpn.org.za.

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of the small sample size, the results merely indicate trends or issues that needinvestigation through more intensive research, and in policy and other interventions’(Bosire et al., 2002). A major methodological question was the identification of peopleinfected and affected by HIV/Aids. According to data from HIV sentinel sites,KwaZulu-Natal generally has the highest prevalence rate of infections among youngadults among all nine provinces in the country. This province was therefore selected forthe South African study. With the support of community health workers, over 50households affected by chronic illness in four study sites were approached. It wassignificant that most respondents were open about their own status or that of the familymembers in question, even if they were not open about such matters in thecommunity. The other two studies used similar techniques in identifying Aids-affectedhouseholds.

In anticipation of follow-up research, the HSRC identified two main shortcomings ofthe KwaZulu-Natal study. First, no interviews were conducted with members ofnon-affected households, which meant that it could not be established whether thetenure insecurity experienced by various types of Aids-affected households were, infact, unique to those households. Secondly, there was a lack of complementaryinterviews with those responsible for land administration, which would have providedalternative perspectives on the experience of Aids-affected households and the media-tion of tenure security.

Despite these limitations, the studies have provided important perspectives of themultiple impacts of HIV/Aids on land. They have been built upon in the form of a morecomprehensive study undertaken in Kenya in early 2003, commissioned by theEast-Africa division of the Department for International Development (DFID-EA) andthe FAO (Kenya) in partnership with the Kenyan Ministry of Lands and Settlement(Aliber et al., forthcoming), as well as planned follow-up studies in South Africa andLesotho.

4. FINDINGS FROM THE STUDIES

It is obvious that one should not generalise from specific cases, as unique localmanifestations exist around the impact of the epidemic on households and communitiesin terms of access and rights to land. However, case studies are extremely important,as they reveal the issues facing affected individuals. As mentioned earlier, a majorproblem in counteracting the developmental impact of the epidemic is the lack of harddata on real changes (Loewenson & Whiteside, 2001).

4.1 Impacts on land use

Despite evident diversification out of agriculture, rural production remains an importantcomponent of many rural livelihoods throughout sub-Saharan Africa. ‘African ruraldwellers … deeply value the pursuit of farming … food self-provisioning is gaining inimportance against a backdrop of food inflation and proliferating cash needs’ (Bryceson& Banks, 2000). Participation in ‘small-plot agriculture’ is highly gendered, withwomen taking major responsibility for it as one aspect of a multiple livelihood strategy.Access to land-based natural resources remains a vital component of rural livelihoods,especially as a safety net. It is therefore important to conceptualise the impact ofHIV/Aids on the use of resources, particularly that of land. Ill health and time spentin caring for the sick reduce time spent on land utilisation, leading to less labour-inten-

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sive uses, reduced productivity and underutilisation of resources, such as leaving theland fallow.

This was evident in the Lesotho study, conducted in Ha Poli in the Katse Catchmentand Matsatsaneng in Botha Bothe. These two distinct areas are under customary landmanagement institutions and the study revealed that illness has impacted substantiallyon agricultural yields (Mphale et al., 2002). Some farming activities even have to bepostponed or abandoned. The problem of labour shortage is aggravated by the lengthof the mourning period, during which households of the deceased are forbidden to workon their fields. Affected households reported declined productivity in their homegardens once a member of the household contracted HIV/Aids, a situation which hashad a direct effect on household food security.

The Kenyan study was carried out in the Madiany division in the Bondo district andOthaya division in Nyeri district, where land is held largely under a patriarchal systemand households have a strong sense of individual household rights. The study revealeda significant reduction in the area of land cultivated, on account of the death ofbreadwinners and adults who were formerly active in agricultural production (Bosire etal., 2002). Despite an abundance of land, households that are traditionally dependenton the land are left vulnerable and unable to continue production due to shortages oflabour and other agricultural inputs.

The South African study was conducted in KwaZulu-Natal, and specifically inDondotha, KwaDumisa, KwaNyuswa and Muden. These four sites are characterised bya variety of tenure situations, including a land redistribution project on freehold land(Muden), a deep rural area in the former KwaZulu homeland (Dondotha), a lessisolated and more prosperous area in former KwaZulu (KwaDumisa) and a peri-urbanarea on communal land on the outskirts of Durban (KwaNyuswa). The study confirmedthe findings from Kenya and Lesotho in that one of the earliest and most directconsequences of HIV/Aids is that a rural household has less labour available to workthe land (Adams et al., 2002a, 2002b). This is because individuals suffering fromAids-related illnesses are obviously less capable of performing agricultural tasks, andbecause their caregivers have less time available for chores in general. A third factorleading to the underutilisation of land is that households become ever more impover-ished by expenses associated with medical care, funerals and debt repayment.

It is important to note that, in KwaZulu-Natal, underutilisation of land is more commonthan non-utilisation. Many fields are often sown but only partially so. Inadequateweeding means that less is produced, even in relation to the smaller portion of landused. Where production might have been sufficient to meet household needs before theonset of the disease and would have left a surplus for cash sales, it now falls belowwhat is necessary for the household’s needs.

4.2 Land use strategies

In response to the epidemic, affected households and infected individuals have adopteda number of strategies to enhance their food security and to ensure that assets such asland remain in their custody. If a family lacks the labour to make use of its own land,and also lacks cash and other resources to hire skills and labour, they often rent out orlease the land, make sharecropping or other contractual arrangements, or ‘lend’ the landto others. Although these strategies might offset the threat of HIV/Aids in thehousehold, changes in uses and users could result in a household being at risk of losing

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land either through selling it formally or informally, through abandonment, or throughothers forcibly taking it away.

In Lesotho, affected households and infected individuals have adopted a number ofstrategies such as sharecropping, livestock sales and mafisa (i.e. lending livestock torelatives or other households), to ensure that assets such as land remain in theircustody. The sale of livestock, however, has deprived some households of their cattlefor draught power. This is considered one of the major inhibiting factors to effectivemanagement of fields, because other community members are used to helping peoplewho have at least one form of asset, even if this is a single livestock unit. Otherincidences were reported where infected households utilised sharecropping to gainaccess to draught power after they had sold their livestock to cover medical expenses.In general, affected households are increasingly using sharecropping as a means ofworking on their fields and also as a strategy to avoid revocations due to fallow lands.Sharecropping assures them of continued access to agricultural land as well as part ofthe harvest, despite being too sick to cultivate their own land.

Based on the KwaZulu-Natal case studies, an Aids-affected household has four mainoptions when faced with the prospect of underutilising land (Adams et al., 2002a,2002b):

• The most common response of households that are unable to continue to utilise theirland to the full due to inadequate labour resources is to hire casual workers.

• Renting out the land is not a common strategy despite its obvious benefits. This isbecause rental markets are not well developed in most tribal areas of KwaZulu-Natal,and in some they are positively forbidden. Those households from the survey whodid opt for renting out their land felt the need to be vigilant lest the lessee orsomeone else should usurp control of the land altogether.

• The household could enter into a sharecropping arrangement. The vulnerabilitycaused by HIV/Aids has, however, placed many of these households in a weakposition when negotiating the terms of the sharecropping contracts. The fear oflosing the land to those now utilising it was a major concern expressed byhouseholds considering this strategy.

• Few of the households in the study contemplated selling their land. Selling land isconsidered an extreme measure, as it both precludes future benefits from the land andmeans forfeiting an important element of the family’s patrimony. The one exceptionwas KwaNyuswa, a densely populated peri-urban area outside Durban, in whichsome of the poorest households did indeed sell their plots on an informal landmarket.

The effectiveness of many of these strategies is predicated on clear rights to land.Rights to land can contribute positively to households affected by the HIV/Aidsepidemic, as it can underpin livelihoods and economic development by removinguncertainty and encouraging families to utilise their asset. However, the epidemic hasin many instances impacted negatively on land rights.

4.3 The impact on land rights

People without clear rights to land come increasingly under pressure from theepidemic, with the issues of gender and age affecting the ability to enjoy the benefitsof the asset. For example, HIV/Aids may affect the ability of widows, orphans and

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youth to access and use land, transact or inherit it, to exclude others from it, or toensure that their rights are enforced.

4.3.1 Women

In Lesotho, women’s land rights, although clearly stipulated by the law, are not alwaysprotected in reality. Practices vary, depending on the manner in which land rights areinterpreted. They also tend to vary with the level of understanding of HIV/Aids, as wellthe fairness and compassion of the local authority overseeing land rights. The situationof widows is often worsened by the community’s perceptions of factors contributing toHIV/Aids and the stigma attached to the disease, many of which place the blameentirely on women. Some widows reported that they had been allowed to retain theirlate husband’s agricultural land and that they could engage in arrangements such assharecropping or hiring people to work their land when necessary.

According to the Kenyan study, HIV/Aids has clearly impacted on inheritance rights,particularly those of widows and orphans. In some of the cases, women werecompletely dispossessed of their inheritance to land and property after their husband’sdeath. The prevailing practice is that inheritance is patriarchal, with the result that inseveral cases land has been inherited or is being held in trust by male relatives. It hasbeen reported that when a married man dies of Aids or becomes infected, the womanis often accused of having infected her husband. These widows are subsequently undergreat pressure to leave their marital homes.

The central issue with regard to HIV/Aids and land rights in the KwaZulu-Natal casestudies is inheritance, especially when a woman’s husband dies or when children losetheir parents. Traditional, cultural norms in the communal areas of KwaZulu-Natal aresuch that women are generally not seen as having land rights independently of theirhusbands. Thus, upon a husband’s death, there is the presumption that the womanremains in possession of the land only at the sufferance of the husband’s extendedfamily. The position in respect of orphans is similar. However, in many areas ofKwaZulu-Natal, this cultural norm is not as strong as it once was, and it is increasinglycommon for women to resist pressure to either relinquish their land or marry back intothe husband’s family, if this pressure exists at all.

4.3.2 Orphans

Rugalema (1999) reports that intensive use of child labour is a major strategy typicallyused by the afflicted household. Children may be taken out of school to fill labour andincome gaps created when productive adults become ill, are caring for terminally illhousehold members, or are deceased. Thus the issue of children’s rights, and inparticular orphans’ rights, comes strongly into focus in the context of HIV/Aids.

Orphan-headed households, defined as children under 16 years of age who have lostboth their parents or their mother, are affected the most through dispossession by‘guardians’ in the Kenyan study. Most informants were aware of the practice ofdispossessing orphans of their land under the pretext of acting as custodians orguardians (who, in most cases, were men). A further complication is the legal right oforphans to property and their particular vulnerability. The orphans’ rights to land wereinfringed in several cases of land ‘grabbing’.

The Lesotho study revealed that agricultural land is a highly valued asset, which

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parents perceive to be the ultimate security for their children. Many respondentsstipulated that land was not to be sold if they were to die. Therefore, the right to landas an inheritable asset is deemed essential as a basis for livelihood security for futuregenerations. In both study areas, traditional authorities claim that Aids orphans areunder the protection of their extended families on their father’s side. The orphans’uncles use the land to raise them until they are of age and can inherit it. This positionwas, however, challenged by women respondents, who argued that there had been caseswhere orphans were cheated out of their heritage.

4.3.3 Youth-headed households

An important issue that arose from the case material, particularly that fromKwaNyuswa in KwaZulu-Natal, was the vulnerability of youth-headed households.These households often consist of family members aged between 15 and 17, who arenot qualified to hold land under the communal system. Such households seem to beparticularly vulnerable to losing their land. Many are holding land on default inherit-ance, so that the land is still formally unallocated after the death of the last holder. Thisuncertain status, combined with the kind of poverty exacerbated by HIV/Aids, hascreated tenure vulnerability and seems to encourage attempts at land grabbing. Unlikewidows, whose households can continue to exist according to established practice,younger people who inherit prematurely seemingly tend not to form an establishedhousehold and remain for long periods without formal standing.

4.4 The impact on land administration

In the light of the impact on land use and rights, it is essential to look at the effect ofHIV/Aids on land administration systems and other institutions charged with issuesconcerning rural development, such as health services, welfare and land use. HIV/Aidshas implications for their sustainability, effectiveness and ability to cope with increaseddemands.

According to Mullins (2001), HIV/Aids increasingly impacts on and changes theenvironment of institutions. For example, in the case of government departments orcivil society institutions, both employees and clientele, as well as ways of working withpeople, would change, with a likely effect on morale. The internal capacity oforganisations would also be affected as more staff became infected and affected. Mostnotably, as infection rates increased, so too absenteeism and staff productivity woulddecrease. This would be coupled with increasing financial costs to the institution inretraining staff replacements, in severance and hiring, loss of time, the drain on medicalaid funds, increased death benefits and pension payouts. Competition for skilled staffwould increase as the pool of skilled and experienced individuals was reduced.

Some of these issues were in evidence in the Kenyan study. Given the lack ofdisclosure in Kenya around the cause of death, the report could not directly attributeHIV/Aids to changes in the personnel of the Ministry of Lands and Settlement. It was,however, asserted that the impact was considerable, as interviews with ministryofficials revealed that there had been a noticeable increase in staff deaths in the lastthree years. The culture of silence, bred by the stigmatisation attached to HIV/Aids, hasalso affected other sectors. The Ministry of Education in Nyanza indicated that 925teachers had died in two years. Deaths of teachers were more noticeable due to thehigher numbers and the immediate effect in the classrooms. At the community level,

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informal discussions, particularly in Bondo, illustrated that key informants wereconcerned about the consequences of deaths among extension and land officials. Someof them identified the stalling or delay of the land adjudication process and the loss ofinstitutional memory – the latter referred particularly to chiefs and subchiefs who oftenhave detailed and specific information on land ownership in the areas.

Land administration was directly perceived in KwaZulu-Natal in terms of measurestaken by households to protect their land rights. In a number of the cases wherewidows’ or orphans’ inheritance of land rights was directly threatened, it was theintervention of the induna (headman) or, more rarely, the inkosi (chief) that extin-guished that threat. This was true even in Muden, which is technically not a customaryarea but which nonetheless has been effectively absorbed into the adjacent tribaladministration. What is not clear from the case studies is exactly on what groundstraditional authorities decide to come to the assistance of those whose rights are underthreat. It appeared from some cases that the manner in which the induna intervened wasbased on compassion for struggling households. While this compassion was not to bedismissed, neither could it be considered reliable.

Another situation in which the role of the traditional land administration was inevidence was in facilitating land renting. A handful of households who, because ofAids-related illnesses, were no longer capable of using their own land fully, sought toovercome the insecurity associated with land renting by engaging the assistance of theinduna as a witness. This was in lieu of other administrative arrangements forfacilitating land rental, but it nevertheless appeared to be efficacious and to the obviousbenefit of the households. The fact that land renting is not more common reflects thefact that in many KwaZulu-Natal customary areas the traditional authority forbids landrenting. However, another concern was that, even in an area where the induna issometimes willing to oblige in facilitating a rental arrangement, his interventiondepends in large measure on the landholder’s relationship with him.

Rights to land in Lesotho are underpinned by the Lesotho Land Act of 1979, whichstates that land which lies fallow for more than for two years in succession automati-cally reverts to the allocating authority. This provision, which is encouraged in the landpolicy review report of 2001, is an attempt to enhance agricultural productivity throughensuring that all cropland is used by allottees. Although meant to ensure equity, thisprovision seems not to have anticipated the deprivation of agricultural land due tocontinued illness, which would render land fallow for an extended period.

5. CONCLUSIONS

Considering these multiple impacts of HIV/Aids on land, and in particular the issue ofa woman’s right to land upon the death of her husband, or children’s rights upon thedeath of their parents, the question arises as to what is different about deaths due toHIV/Aids as opposed to other causes? One possible answer is that it is not the diseaseitself, but rather the fact that the epidemic is placing many more (relatively young)women and children in this position than ever before. On another level, however, thespecific manner in which HIV/Aids impoverishes households means that upon findingherself a widow, a woman has few resources left with which to resist outside pressuresexerted by neighbours or members of the extended family, or to make choices that areultimately in her own best interest. One striking theme that emerges from the case

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studies is how characteristically resilient and resourceful many of these affected peoplehave been.

It is clear that rights to land, particularly for agricultural production, remain importantfor HIV/Aids-affected households in the study areas in Lesotho, Kenya and SouthAfrica. Land use has, however, been impacted upon through the loss of labour andother assets, which makes it difficult to mobilise rights to production. It is importantto recognise that households have not remained passive in the face of HIV/Aids andother impacts, but have generated strategies intended to overcome these difficulties. Forexample, the emergence of sharecropping in both the Lesotho and South African casestudies was notable, as were land-use conversions and sales, the leasing of land inKenya, and the need in all three countries to leave land fallow.

It is thus important for policy makers to recognise the importance of land rights,particularly for those left behind after Aids-related deaths. There should be an attemptto facilitate wider land-use options for both agricultural and non-farm activities, for itto be relevant to particularly vulnerable people such as widows, orphans and youth-headed households. Such options could include developing land rental markets incommunal areas, increasing access to water for gardening purposes, and increasing thecapacity of households through inputs such as seed, credit and extension to engage inincome-generating activities. It is also important that policy makers take bettercognisance of diverse household types that result from HIV/Aids and reflect theheterogeneity of these households.

Cases in all three countries indicated that although the land management institutionsinvestigated were central in the adjudication between overlapping claims to land rights,they have played mixed roles. In a few cases in KwaZulu-Natal, traditional authoritiesultimately ensured that land rights were upheld to protect households left in avulnerable situation, accentuated in a context of increased land grabbing and thebreakdown of trust. However, this remained in the framework of a patriarchal systemthat often upheld gender inequalities. What is clear is that women’s and orphans’ rightsare often dependent on the compassion of the traditional authority, a sensitive issue inthe context of the stigma attached to HIV/Aids. The fact that these groups areparticularly vulnerable to losing their land rights as households must be acknowledgedin policy processes. Policy should support the rights of vulnerable people to ensure thattheir needs are addressed in land administration. This could be achieved throughinterventions such as strengthening land registration systems in communal areas andensuring representation of weaker individuals and households in land administrationsystems.

REFERENCES

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