AIDS, Security and Governance in Southern Africa Exploring the Impact

By undermining health and the development of human capital, it is widely acknowledged that HIV/AIDS will increasingly undermine the foundations of human and economic development, although the details of this impact are as yet poorly understood.This paper sets out to examine some of these potential impacts on security and governance in Southern Africa—the region where global HIV-prevalence is highest. To this end, the paper considers the thinking behind HIV/AIDS as a security issue and problematises the nature of the epidemic in the region. It then pulls together existing thinking to consider in detail the potential impact of HIV/AIDS on security and governance in the region.