RENEWAL's action research agenda both contributes to the evidence base on HIV and AIDS, food and nutrition security, as well as responding dynamically to it -- evolving over time to home in on the key policy-relevant questions and issues. Work is phased as follows:
The first phase of RENEWAL (2001-2005) encompassed a series of collaborative brainstorming "Think Tanks" along with two capacity strengthening workshops. A call for proposals led to the selection and development of proposals and the initiation of the action research studies shown in Table 1.
| Title | Country | Partners |
|---|---|---|
| The Effects of HIV/AIDS on Agricultural Production Systems in Zambia: A Restudy | Zambia | CARE International Zambia |
| HIV/AIDS and Community Resilience in Zambia: Understanding the Implications for Food and Nutrition Policies | Farming Systems Association, Ministry of Agriculture, Michigan State University, IFPRI | |
| HIV/AIDS, Food and Nutrition Security in South Africa: Understanding and Responding | South Africa | University of Western Cape, IFPRI |
| Promoting agricultural innovation In AIDS affected rural households in KwaZulu-Natal | Farmer Support Group, KwaZulu-Natal; Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam | |
| HIV/AIDS, land reform and land-based livelihoods in three provinces in South Africa | Human Sciences Research Council, South Africa | |
| HIV/AIDS, rural livelihoods and depeasantisation in Malawi: finding pathways to social recovery | Malawi | CARE International Malawi, Center of Social Research, Malawi, University of Leiden, Netherlands |
| Impact of HIV/AIDS on inter- and intra-generational information flows among smallholder farmers | Chancellor College, Malawi, ICRISAT-Malawi, Overseas Development Institute, UK | |
| Farming Systems and Resilience to HIV/AIDS in Malawi | Institute for Policy Research and Analysis for Dialogue, Blantyre, Chancellor College |
The first phase was deliberately slanted towards AIDS and agriculture, focusing primarily on interactions and impacts. It culminated in the International Conference on HIV/AIDS and Food and Nutrition Security, held in Durban, South Africa, 14-16 April 2005.
Building on its first phase and on Durban, RENEWAL developed a more proactive focus on policy-relevant research - that is, research that moves from the focus on interactions between HIV/AIDS and food security to an understanding of how to effectively improve the "HIV-responsiveness" of food and nutrition-relevant policies and programs. Following a post-Durban research prioritization exercise and a new competitive call for proposals, a second round of peer-reviewed action research studies were developed in late 2005 and started in early 2006, as summarized in Table 2.
| Title | Country | Partners |
|---|---|---|
| Dealing with vulnerability: parents efforts to secure the future of their children | Regional | University of Cape Town, University of KwaZulu Natal, IFPRI, Southern Africa Vulnerability Initiative (SAVI) |
| Tuberculosis: An Additional Tipping Stress to Poor Households in South Africa and Zambia | Stellenbosch University, S.Africa; University Teaching Hospital, Zambia | |
| HIV/AIDS, Food and Nutrition Security and Urban-Rural Linkages in Southern Africa | IFPRI, RENEWAL, Southern African Migration Project | |
| Impact of a Nutrition Program for AIDS Patients and its role in their Coping Strategies | Kenya | Moi University, AMPATH, IFPRI, Columbia University, USA, World Bank |
| HIV/AIDS Mortality and the Role of Woodland Resources in the Maintenance of Household Food Security in Rural Limpopo Province. | South Africa | SUNRAE Program; University of Witwatersrand, University of Colorado at Boulder, USA |
| Gender Issues in HIV/AIDS and Food/Nutrition security among Internally Displaced People's Camps in Uganda | Uganda | Makerere University |
| Land Ownership and Food Security in Uganda: A Study of the Use and Control of Land Among Households of Women Affected by HIV/AIDS in Four Districts | Makerere University and National Community of Women Living with HIV/AIDS | |
| The Effects on Rural Livelihoods of Increasing Rates of HIV/AIDS-related Illness and Death in Zomba South, Malawi | Malawi | Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Bunda College of Agriculture, Zomba |
| Stigma/Discrimination within the HIV/AIDS, Food Security and Gender Context in Ethiopia | Ethiopia | Family Health International, RENEWAL |
Ongoing, demand-driven RENEWAL action research will be complemented in the future by a more targeted approach aimed at addressing key remaining research questions in various themes. Such questions include those which may not figure among the first priorities of any single constituency and those which cannot be easily addressed by any one partner institution.
Overall, as key knowledge gaps are addressed there will be a progressive shift in emphasis over time toward rigorous operational and evaluative research. Early operational research in this field has been characterized as "learning-by-doing". But for the "doing" to be accompanied by actual learning, as new HIV-mainstreamed programs come on line, the development and maintenance of good systems of HIV-relevant monitoring, evaluation and communications will be crucial. Operational and evaluative research on interventions will need to build on what is already known to monitor and evaluate the impacts, and improve the design and efficiency of interventions. As new approaches or 'policy experiments' that put new emerging knowledge to practical use are increasingly developed, RENEWAL will become involved in the design of appropriate information systems, and potentially in the evaluation of program impacts. Such research will provide substantive evidence of how to link research outcomes with policy reform and programming.