The cases of HIV/AIDS were first reported in 1983 in Eastern Africa. The threat of the disease went from being rare to becoming a fact of daily existence for most families in Eastern Africa. HIV/AIDS affects all aspects of development from local government policies to foreign aid. Last year, approximately 10,000 cases from 20 mainland regions of Eastern Africa were reported by the World Health Organization. However, this number is an understatement since most people suffering from the disease are never diagnosed due to the social stigma associated with having HIV/AIDS. For example, in Kajera, a man after being diagnosed was killed by the local authorities who believed it was their responsibility to prevent the spread of the disease in their region. The general trend suggests a rapid increase in the spread of HIV/AIDS throughout the Eastern African population due to blood transfusions, mother to child transmission, and sexual relationships.

Epidemiologically speaking, HIV/AIDS is most pervasive in people who live below the poverty line, the youth, and women due to social-economic reasons. Poor people usually get infected due to the lack of contraceptive availability, diagnosis resources, and a complete lack of awareness about the ways of transmission of the disease and preventative measure to avoid the disease. Women also form one of the most vulnerable groups because they are deemed subordinate to men in Eastern African society and are usually economically dependent upon men for their existence. Youth (ages 10-17) is increasingly becoming a susceptible group to the disease due to the increase in child abuse, poverty, orphans and prostitution across Eastern Africa.

HIV/AIDS has also seriously impacted the economy of Eastern Africa. It has predominantly affected the middle and the lower classes which forms the backbone of the Eastern African agricultural and industrial sectors’ labor force. Moreover, it has substantially affected the socio-demographic parameters as evident by the sharp decline in life expectancy and the decrease in the number of nuclear families. The local government and international aid organizations realize the magnitude of the problem but have done little to stop the spread of the disease. Most of the government effort has been focused on the care for AIDS patients and providing shelter for the victims. However, little is being done by the government and local NGO’s to educate the general population about transmission modes of the disease, making diagnosis of the disease more available or informing the public about the preventative techniques. This lack of understanding has not only led to a rapid increase of the disease but has also created a general atmosphere of fear throughout the continent.

In order to reverse the process of disintegrating non-modern sector and the inevitable exhaustion of the modern sector’s resources, I believe that it is imperative to focus our development efforts to the creation of what Schumacher(Ernst Friedrich Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was an internationally influential economic thinker with a professional background as a statistician and economist in Britain) calls an “agro-industrial structure” in villages and small towns. An agro-industrial structure is only possible when we, along with expanding our cities, bring a lot of job opportunities to the non-modern sector.

I agree with Schumacher’s contention because for the country to prosper it is important that it uses all its resources including labor. I also believe that it is more important to have everyone employed even if it means lower output per person because as Schumacher points out, that it is only when “they [the workers] experience that their time and labor is of value that they can become interested in making it more valuable.” Moreover, it is extremely crucial that the new workplaces that are brought into these rural areas are numerous, cheap, encourage local production from available resources, and minimize the amount of technical skills required. These conditions, however, are only possible when there is a concentrated effort to build and apply what Schumacher calls “intermediate technology.”

Schumacher’s concept of intermediate technology helped me gain several new perspectives about the relationship between technology, work opportunities, and rural development. Intermediate technology not only seeks to eliminate the problem of rural unemployment by creating many jobs but can also reverse the damage of highly sophisticated “$1,000 technology” in developing nations. The developing countries that import the expensive $1000 technology into their economies, expecting a quick economic boom, “inevitable kill off the [existing] $1-technology at an alarming rate, destroying workplaces much faster than modern workplaces can be created” from the $1000 technology.

The answer neither lies in the $1 indigenous technology that leads to rural unemployment in the first place nor in the sophisticated $1000 technology but in low-capital intermediate technology consisting of easy to understand, simple, and maintainable equipment. Such cheap equipment would not only fit smoothly into the highly underdeveloped environment of the non-modern sector but also lead to the creation of a vast number of workplaces and millions of jobs for the unemployed in the village.

A surprise move by President Pervez Musharraf to re-appoint eight deposed judges of the Sindh High Court (SHC) threw a spanner in the works of the ruling coalition, severely affecting their earlier agreed plan to impeach him. The day-long political drama appeared to be turning into a farce in the evening when the presidency deliberately leaked the news that a summary to re-appoint the judges had been sent to the president by the law ministry and a notification was being issued. Continue Reading

SENATORS from both sides of the aisle argued the other day that the current pro-American policy, a product of the military establishment, should give way to an independent stance. Mr Raza Rabbani, a PPP spokesman and leader of the House, endorsed this call and added that his party had never had any connection with the ‘establishment’ and its fashioning of a pro-American policy.

These assertions are not correct. Pakistan adopted a distinctly pro-American policy beginning about 1954 when a civilian government was in place. It joined US-sponsored anti-communist alliances in the Middle East and Southeast Asia and began receiving American military and economic assistance. This policy direction continued during Ayub Khan’s rule and, in varying measure, during subsequent military regimes. But it is wrong to say that the military establishment had initiated it. Continue Reading