Gender, HIV/AIDS and Rural Livelihoods: Micro-level Investigations in Three African Countries

Abstract

According to the latest estimates by UNAIDS (2006: 8) there are about 38.6 million people living with HIV worldwide. Within the last five years, there has been a growing recognition that HIV/AIDS is not only a global public health threat, but also a major humanitarian crisis that challenges both global security and threatens achievement of the first Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the proportion of hungry and extremely poor people by 2015. `Where it reaches epidemic proportions, AIDS can be so pervasive that it can devastate whole regions, knock decades off national development and destroy what constitutes a nation' (Kristofferson 2003: 1).