HIV/AIDS, Climate Change and Disaster Management: Challenges for Institutions in Malawi

Southern African institutions involved in disaster management face two major new threats: the HIV/AIDS pandemic (eroding organizational capacity and increasing vulnerability of the population), and climate change (higher risk of extreme events and disasters). Analyzing the combined effects of these two threats on six disaster-related institutions in Malawi, the authors find evidence of a growing gap between demand for their services and capacity to satisfy that demand. HIV/AIDS leads to staff attrition, high vacancy rates, absenteeism, increased workload and other negative effects enhanced by human resources policies and financial limitations. Many necessary tasks cannot be carried out adequately with constraints such as the 42 percent vacancy rate in the Department of Poverty and Disaster Management Affairs, or the reduction of rainfall stations operated by the Meteorological Service from over 800 in 1988 to just 135 in 2006. The authors highlight implications of declining organizational capacity for climate change adaptation, and formulate recommendations.

[1]  M. Awases,et al.  Addressing the human resources crisis: a case study of the Namibian health service , 2007, Human resources for health.

[2]  C. Hawkes,et al.  The links between agriculture and health: an intersectoral opportunity to improve the health and livelihoods of the poor. , 2006, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.

[3]  Carlos A. Coelho,et al.  Evidence of trends in daily climate extremes over southern and west Africa , 2006 .

[4]  R. Kovats,et al.  Climate change and human health: impacts, vulnerability and public health. , 2006, Public health.

[5]  C. Ngongondo.  An analysis of long-term rainfall variability, trends and groundwater availability in the Mulunguzi river catchment area, Zomba mountain, Southern Malawi , 2006 .

[6]  Johan Rockström,et al.  Reducing hazard vulnerability: towards a common approach between disaster risk reduction and climate adaptation. , 2006, Disasters.

[7]  Mark Pelling,et al.  Disaster risk, climate change and international development: scope for, and challenges to, integration. , 2006, Disasters.

[8]  M. Lemos,et al.  Adaptation and the state: Latin America and the challenge of capacity-building under globalization , 2006 .

[9]  D. Palmer.  Tackling Malawi's Human Resources Crisis , 2006, Reproductive health matters.

[10]  W. Adger,et al.  Defining response capacity to enhance climate change policy , 2005 .

[11]  Peter J. Gregory,et al.  Climate change and food security , 2005, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

[12]  K. Mason,et al.  AIDS, drought, and child malnutrition in southern Africa , 2005, Public Health Nutrition.

[13]  B. Hewitson,et al.  The Interannual Variability of the Onset of the Maize Growing Season over South Africa and Zimbabwe , 2005 .

[14]  P. Bennell.  The Impact of the AIDS Epidemic on Teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa , 2005 .

[15]  J. Seeley,et al.  HIV and AIDS among fisherfolk: a threat to 'responsible fisheries'? , 2004 .

[16]  A. Whiteside,et al.  New variant famine: AIDS and food crisis in southern Africa , 2003, The Lancet.

[17]  Nigel W. Arnell,et al.  Climate change scenarios from a regional climate model: Estimating change in runoff in southern Africa , 2003 .

[18]  L. Guinness,et al.  Surviving the impact of HIV-related illness in the Zambian business sector. , 2003, AIDS patient care and STDs.

[19]  Oladele A. Ogunseitan,et al.  Framing environmental change in Africa: cross-scale institutional constraints on progressing from rhetoric to action against vulnerability , 2003 .

[20]  Elisabeth Meze-Hausken,et al.  Migration caused by climate change: how vulnerable are people inn dryland areas? , 2000 .

[21]  J. Cuddington,et al.  Assessing the impact of AIDS on the growth path of the Malawian economy. , 1994, Journal of development economics.

[22]  S. Foster.  Maize production, drought and AIDS in Monze District Zambia , 1993 .

[23]  S. Berkley,et al.  AIDS in Africa: Its Present and Future Impact , 1992 .

[24]  R. Mechler,et al.  Feasibility of Risk Financing Schemes for Climate Adaptation: The Case of Malawi , 2007 .

[25]  P. Piot,et al.  International response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic: planning for success. , 2001, Bulletin of the World Health Organization.