Background HOUSEHOLD ECONOMIC STRENGTHENING

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6. HOUSEHOLD ECONOMIC STRENGTHENING

6.1 Background

The HIV pandemic affects the economic stability of families and the children in their care by interrupting income streams, depleting assets, introducing labor constraints, and increasing dependency ratios. 101 Approaches to strengthening the economic and food security of families affected by AIDS need to be a part of the continuum of response to preempt a descent into more extreme vulnerability, improve household welfare, and prevent future risk exposure. 102,103 Household economic strengthening HES comprises a portfolio of interventions to reduce the economic vulnerability of families and empower them to provide for the essential needs of the children in their care. Social protection is a similar area of programming, with some notable differences: a greater focus on longer-term outcomes and a greater need for systemic government-led initiatives to sustain interventions. HES tends to focus on shorter-term outcomes, especially on how families accumulate and spend their money. The defining features of both HES and social protection are a focus on families as direct beneficiaries, with su ess easu ed a fa il s a ilit to i est i the edu atio , ut itio , a d health of its children. School-based businesses, revenue-generating activities for NGOs, and affordable provision of essential services are not included under HES. When considering HES, food security must also be considered, as they are related to one another. The USG considers food security to consist of three interrelated components: access, availability, and utilization. Recently, a fourth factor has also become prominent: resilience or stability. The HES approaches covered in this section relate directly to the access and resilience dimensions of food security; the utilization dimension of it is covered in the health and nutrition section. Refer to Annex A for definitions of terms, explanation of concepts, and further review of evidence cited in this section.

6.2 Evidence-Based Implementation Recommendations