Essay About Bondo District And Hiv Land Rights

Hiv Land Rights In Kenya
Essay Preview: Hiv Land Rights In Kenya
Report this essay
7 Research findings —
Bondo District
7.1 Background on Bondo District
Population and economy
Bondo District is one of the 11 districts in Nyanza Province. It is a relatively new district,
having been created from the southern part of Siaya District as recently as 1998. It has a
population of about 238 780 living in 56 607 households. The population is extremely
young: 47% of the population is 14 years old and younger, and 58% is 19 years and
younger. Bondo District has five divisions, each of which borders Lake Victoria.
The headquarters of the district are in Bondo town. According to the 1999 census, the
�core urban’ population in and around Bondo town is 12 202, comprising a mere 5% of
the total district population. On the other hand, the rural population density of Bondo
District is high at around 230 people/km2, though not as high as that for Nyanza Province
as a whole.
The economy of Bondo District is dominated by fishing, small-scale cropping, and animal
husbandry. The district has approximately 175 kilometres of shoreline along the eastern
part of Lake Victoria; however, the economic potential of the artisanal fishing industry is
limited by the lack of refrigeration facilities. Crop production is dominated by maize,
followed by other large grains and some tubers. As elsewhere in Nyanza Province, tsetse
fly constrains livestock production.1 According to some observers this has been growing
worse in recent years on account of bush encroachment caused by a decline in area
cropped.2 Notwithstanding the large share of the population engaged in farming (see
Table 7.1), Bondo is a perpetual food deficit area. Poor rainfall in recent years has
exacerbated the problem of insufficient production. This, together with weak marketing
links, has constrained production of cash crops such as cotton and sugar.
Table 7.1 shows the composition of the economically active population according to the
1999 census.
Among the three districts studied, Bondo has the smallest share in the �work for pay’
category (20%, versus 42% for Thika and 28% for Embu), an intermediate share in
agriculture (53%, versus 38% for Thika and 58% cent for Embu), and the highest share in
non-farm family business (22%, versus 13% for Thika and 10% for Embu). The large share
attributed to non-farm family business presumably relates to fishing. The very low
ЩHSRC 2004
1 Personal communication, E Too, District Officer, Bondo.
2 Personal communication, M Aronson & E Idwasi, September 2002.
Table 7.1: Composition of the economically active population of Bondo District
Female Male Total
Work for pay 4 491 13 552 18 043
Unemployed 2 040 2 519 4 559
Unpaid workers — family business 11 788 8 775 20 563
Unpaid workers — family farm 31 053 17 942 48 995
Source: Central Bureau of Statistics 2002.
The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Land Rights
unemployment rates for women, men, and both women and men — 4%, 6%, and 5%
respectively — owe to the large participation in subsistence fishing and agriculture, and
presumably hide a fair amount of �disguised unemployment’ subsumed within these
activities.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Bondo
The AIDS epidemic has been serious for longer in Nyanza than in most other parts of the
country. Table 7.2 reports two time series of HIV prevalence rates, the one from the
urban sentinel site in Kisumu, and the other from a rural sentinel site based in
Chulaimbo, which is in Kisumu District some 15 kilometres east of Kisumu town on the
road towards Yala.
The high historical prevalence rates in Nyanza are commonly attributed to a mix of
factors, including proximity to Uganda, where the AIDS epidemic peaked early relative to
Kenya’s; the major overland transport route to Uganda, which just bypasses Bondo
District to the north; the mobility associated with fishing; and the cultural tradition of wife
inheritance.
Land transactions and land administration
Land adjudication and registration began in some parts of Nyanza province in the 1970s,
and it appears to have begun around the same time in Bondo. However, even given this
relatively late start, the aims of the Swynnerton Plan were further from being
accomplished in Nyanza Province than in most areas. In a now classic study of customary
tenure and formal registration in South Nyanza District, Shipton (1988) showed how the
imposition of the �formal’ land tenure system remained almost irrelevant in