Africa/global: HIV/AIDS and humanitarian action

The Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) has recently published a report on HIV/AIDS and humanitarian action. The report explores the role of humanitarian relief in the context of the AIDS epidemic. It argues that the disease is clearly a massive crisis in its own right: to the extent that humanitarian response is concerned with increased levels of mortality and morbidity, HIV/AIDS can clearly be described as an emergency. At the same time, HIV/AIDS is only one of many factors contributing to food insecurity. It is important to understand how the impact of HIV/AIDS relates to other factors, such as drought and conflict, to create acute humanitarian crises.