Joint Economics AIDS & Poverty Programme

The importance of research informing policies and programmes in the development arena has been highlighted globally and emphasised by South Africa’s previous Minister of Social Development, Dr Zola Skweyiya. Dr Skweyiya stated that:

“Research often enables policies to be generated upon technically well informed basis and it gives warnings of reasons why some policies succeed and others fail… Consequently, evidence is required about the most cost-effective way of achieving a given objective, and about the greatest benefit and utility that can be achieved from the available resources. To ensure this, policy makers should have available to them the widest and latest information on research and best practice and all decisions should be demonstrably rooted in this knowledge.”

Over the past decade, JEAPP has been able to make valuable contributions, working in partnership with government, development agencies and research institutions, to the fight against HIV/AIDS and other areas critical to South Africa’s development.  Some of these contributions include completion of over 40 policy-focused research projects; the initiation and nurturing of collaborative funding of research projects; facilitation of the translation of research results into public policies and actionable decisions; and most importantly, the initiation and nurturing of a culture of collaborative research between donors, government departments and the research community.

The studies range from quantitative information from literature reviews to longitudinal studies over several years, to small intense projects providing in-depth knowledge regarding one particular aspect of AIDS and poverty, to national audits analysing the quantity and quality of service provision. The research has covered a broad range of development issues from the general over-arching relationship between poverty and AIDS, to understanding the connection between livelihoods and poverty at household level and in schools. It has answered pivotal questions including: What is the economic impact on AIDS households? How do households cope with the additional burdens of poverty and what can the state do to assist such families in need? What do our country level statistics suggest about the relationship between AIDS and poverty? What is the impact of social grants and do those eligible access them equally in practice? What can we expect of the macro-economic and sectoral impact of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, and how could anti-retroviral treatment off-set this impact?

The projects that JEAPP has completed can be categorised under the following themes:

* The socio-economic impact of HIV and AIDS and poverty on households.

* The evaluation of Home and Community Based Care (HCBC).

* The impact of HIV and AIDS on the health care sector, housing, education, and Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs).

* The impacts of anti-retroviral treatment (ART).

* Monitoring of government spending, policies and programmes on HIV and AIDS.

Cause and effect relationships between specific research findings and specific policies & programme changes are difficult to define. Most policies and programme development are influenced by a confluence of contributory factors. Also, the implications of research in informing and sculpting policies and programmes can take years to surface and be acknowledged. However, several claims of policy achievement can be made by the projects commissioned and administered by JEAPP including those in the areas of the child support grant, ART, orphanhood, HCBC, SMMEs, the burden of HIV/AIDS on the health sector, among others.