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This paper investigates how HIV/AIDS affects land access, utilisation and control in Malawi, with a particular focus upon vulnerable groups. It presents findings on the effect of HIV/AIDS on land holding, household responses to HIV/AIDS (to ensure their ability to continue using land as a resource), implications for tenure, effect of HIV/AIDS on land administration institutions, and the role of national legal and policy frameworks.The paper recommends:Firstly, that there is a need to raise the profile of the challenge posed by HIV/AIDS to poverty reduction. Government, NGOs and other civil society entities need to develop a collaborative strategy for publicising and addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS on people’s access to land, and their ability to retain and make productive use of it.Secondly, the Malawi poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) should award households that are badly affected by HIV/AIDS special consideration in the reduction initiatives. At present, mentions of HIV/AIDS in the PRSP appear to be add-ons, but further work is required to include a stronger analysis of HIV/AIDS and to integrate it into the paper.Thirdly, key laws, policies and development strategies should be reviewed to insure that provisions marginalising those affected by HIV/AIDS are amended, in particular:local governments should have the authority and financing to expand extension and service facilities to make them accessible to people who are ill or caring for those who are illthe provision that ‘those with the ability and resources’ is a qualification for people to be awarded secure access to land should be removed from the national land policythe potential down-falls of the proposed demand-driven extension policy should be recognised, and should not be introduced without parallel efforts to support marginalised families, who may not be in a position to demand servicesmeasures should be taken to improve the abilities of those affected by HIV/AIDS to have secure access to land, to improve their ability to retain land and to utilise it effectivelycontradictory laws should be harmonised, in particular to ensure consistency in the provisions relating to the empowerment of women and childrenmore focused studies are needed to shed light on the implications of the greater reliance on land by those with a previously more varied livelihood strategy and are now badly affected by HIV/AIDSHIV/AIDS should be mainstreamed into all development planning, including the national land policy and draft land bill. To do so, a review of the land legal framework, with reference to the actual impacts of HIV/AIDS on people’s ability to access, retain and utilise land is recommendedmore effort should be channelled towards mainstreaming HIV/AIDS within land administration institutions, both internally and in their programme workthe gender sensitivity in the proposed national land policy should be implemented, and should assume a degree of gender bias in favour of women in order to reverse the prevailing situation. Civic education should be focused on improving the situation of widows and orphansan audit of existing literature is required in order to collate current information and identify gapsan audit of functional support mechanisms available to those affected by HIV/AIDS is required. They should be assessed for effectiveness and strategies for augmenting them developed, so that subsequent development efforts support rather than replace existing mechanisms[adapted from the author]
