Summary The new variant famine (NVF) hypothesis postulates that HIV/AIDS is eroding rural livelihoods and making agrarian communities more sensitive and less resilient to drought and other shocks. NVF has become a high profile but controversial part of the literature on HIV/AIDS and food crises,...

In areas of Africa hard hit by HIV/AIDS, there are growing concerns that many women lose access to land after the death of their husbands. However, there remains a dearth of quantitative evidence on the proportion of widows who lose access to their deceased husband’s land, whether they lose...

Staple food prices in cities in eastern and southern Africa rose sharply between late 2007 and early 2009, leading to estimates of massive increases in food insecurity and hunger. However, in assessing the impacts of soaring food prices on urban consumers' access to food it is important to...