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In recent years, anxieties have been expressed that the impacts of southern Africa's AIDS pandemic on young people today will damage their future livelihood prospects. Geographers have been remarkably reluctant to explore young people's future livelihoods, inspired by a concern to view young people as human beings, worthy of study in their own right rather than mere human becomings, of interest only as 'adults in the making'. Yet there is growing acknowledgement that young people, like older people, are always both 'being and becoming'. The connections between current and future lives merit much greater attention, both because experiences and actions in childhood and youth undoubtedly shape the futures of individuals and wider society, but also because young people's thoughts and actions are so often geared to the future, and this future orientation shapes their present worlds. This paper reports on research that set out to explore links between the impacts of AIDS and young people's livelihood prospects. Intensive case study research was undertaken, combining participatory methods and life history interviews with young people aged 10-24 in two villages, one in southern Malawi and the other in the mountains of Lesotho. By theorising a temporal dimension to de Haan and Zoomers' concept of livelihood trajectories, the paper focuses on the ways in which young people respond to both the immediate sustenance requirements of themselves and their households and their need to accrue assets for future livelihoods. Some young people's trajectories appear to be disturbed by the influence of AIDS, but with no systematic patterns. Beyond addressing empirical questions concerning the impacts of AIDS, the paper contributes to our understanding of how livelihoods are produced and to the conceptualisation of youth transitions as produced through the iteration of present and future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a study with rural young people (aged 10-24 years) in Malawi and Lesotho, focusing on their opportunities to learn skills and access capital and assets to engage in income-generating activities (IGAs). Participatory group exercises and individual interviews provide many examples of how young people learn skills and start small businesses, as well as an insight into their strategic thinking about engaging in these livelihood options. Various factors, including the effects of AIDS, are shown to affect young people's prospects of succeeding in their ventures. Young people are very keen on starting IGAs, and are supported by adult members of their communities in asking for interventions to help them. We argue that expanded vocational and business training, focusing on locally appropriate types and scale of businesses, coupled with help to raise start-up capital has the potential to improve the chances of young people who are poor and/or AIDS-affected securing sustainable rural livelihoods in their futures. Since AIDS is intertwined with many other issues affecting young people's livelihoods, it is problematic to single out and target only AIDS-affected young people with interventions on skills building and IGAs. Policymakers' attitudes to vocational skills training and support for IGAs in Malawi and Lesotho are also explored, and policy recommendations made to support vulnerable rural young people in their attempts to build sustainable livelihoods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we report the first results from the population-based cancer registry for Blantyre district, Malawi, for the period 1994-1998. In this 5-year period, 1245 cases were recorded in males (an estimated age-standardized incidence of 92.0 per 100,000) and 1003 in females (an age standardised rate (ASR) of 88.8 per 105). The overall percentage of cases with histological verification was just 41.8%, indicating that case-finding outside the laboratory had been quite successful; nevertheless the rather low rates suggest possible underdiagnosis of cancer, as well as cases missed. As in other reports from the region, the contemporary pattern is dominated by Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) (55.2% cancers in men, 28% in women), the effect of the evolving epidemic of AIDS. The incidence of cervix cancer in women is high (ASR 26.2 per 105), and there are moderately high rates of oesophageal cancer (ASR 15.4 per 105 in men, 9.3 per 105 in women). In childhood, the cancer profile is dominated by Burkitt's lymphoma, which accounts for 42.4% of cancers; KS is now the second most frequent cancer of childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an analysis of the role played by community-based organizations (CBOs) in combatting the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Malawi. It is said that CBOs typically distribute program resources based on demand. It is argued that this approach does not ensure that the regions which most require attention will receive it. The CBOs were found to be fairly responsive to their communities, reflecting the civic standards of Malawian culture. It is said that their performance could be improved, however, by implementing a method for allocating resources on the basis of need.

Twelve percent of the Malawian population is HIV infected. Eighteen percent of sexual encounters are casual. A condom is used a third of the time. To analyze the Malawian epidemic, a choice‐theoretic general equilibrium search model is constructed. In the developed framework, people select between different sexual practices while knowing the inherent risk. The calibrated model is used to study several policy interventions, namely, ART, circumcision, better condoms, and the treatment of other STDs. The efficacy of public policy depends upon the induced behavioral changes and equilibrium effects. The framework complements the insights from epidemiological studies and small‐scale field experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue including the impact of faith-based ideologies in the development in Nicaragua, the examination of issues related to HIV/AIDS in Malawi, and the methodologies for faith-based development programs.

Copyright of Tropical Medicine & International Health is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We explore how marital aspirations are related to the sexual behaviors of adolescents and young adults in Malawi, where HIV/AIDS prevalence among adults exceeds 10%. We also consider whether the specter of AIDS is shaping ideals about marriage. By combining survey data (N = 1,087) and in-depth interviews (N = 133) with young Malawians from the Malawi Diffusion and Ideational Change Project, we show that looking for and finding a suitable spouse are linked to sexual behaviors and, thus, HIV risks. Moreover, concerns about contracting HIV are closely tied to the ideal characteristics of a future spouse. Our findings draw long-overdue attention to the importance of marital aspirations in understanding adolescent sexual behaviors and risks in the era of AIDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is limited but growing literature on the direct impacts of HIV/AIDS morbidity and mortality on the livelihoods of poor rural people. Less is known, however, about the wider impacts of the pandemic on livelihoods in rural communities, allowing for market interactions between households. These are difficult to study, but unskilled wages and food prices are critically important to the welfare of the poor people, whether directly affected by HIV/AIDS or not. If the HIV/AIDS epidemic depresses labor demands more than it contracts labor supply, wage rates in affected communities could fall, damaging the livelihoods of poor households. Under such circumstances, promotion of labor-saving enterprises and technologies could be disastrous for the healthy poor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Africa south of the Sahara desert, nearly 21 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. In 13 countries in the region at least 10% of all adults are infected with HIV/AIDS and the prevalence rates in many capital cities are 35% or more. Botswana and Zimbabwe have reached a prevalence rate of 25%, or one out of every four adults in the country is infected. 13 And in nearby Malawi, the prevalence rate is 15% among adults and increasing daily. The Malawi Government recognizes HIV/AIDS as a serious public health and socioeconomic problem requiring multisectoral involvement. Below is an overview of the epidemic's magnitude, the cultural practices facilitating its proliferation and how nurses are joining the country's community mobilization strategy. INSET: Some recommendation for improving care of PLWAs in Malawi. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]