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As of 2018, 37.9 million people globally were living with HIV. 74.9 million people had become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic and 32 million people had died from AIDS-related illnesses. In 2018 alone, 770,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses, while 1.7 million people became newly infected with HIV. Reductions in new infections are stalling and progress is significantly off track from the goal of only 500,000 people newly infected with HIV by 2020.
Civil society efforts have been critical to overcoming many of the major challenges in the AIDS response. Networks of people living with HIV and AIDS deliver life-changing services to those most affected and provide support for adherence to treatment, prevention and other essential health services.
The involvement of civil society has also been crucial in successfully advocating for sustainable financial resources, improving HIV and AIDS programming, and advancing human rights, as seen in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda, according to the International Centre for Notfor-Profit Law.2
But these achievements are at risk. Globally, we are witnessing the harmful effects of rising populism and ultra-conservatism on civil society space, especially for organisations and networks led by stigmatised and marginalised communities.
Land is central to the livelihoods of the majority of people in Zimbabwe who are resident in the countryside. Not only is the land important for food production and self-sustenance, but it also provides a sense of belonging to people while also providing raw materials for use in the manufacturing and industrial sectors. Land is thus critical for an agro-based economy like Zimbabwe where agriculture is the second highest export earner after mining (Chambati, Mazwi & Mberi 2016). The importance of land and agriculture cannot, therefore, be overemphasised enough.
Zimbabwe is one of the few countries in Africa to have experienced land dispossessions of the indigenous populace after the colonial conquest alongside Kenya, Namibia and South Africa (Moyo 2016). Such countries, also known as former settler colonies, were characterised by iniquitous land ownership patterns that pushed the majority of the black population to marginal lands while reducing some to farm laborers, thus setting a stage for armed struggles, which were led by various liberation movements (ibid). For Zimbabwe, the demand for land was one of the major driving issues for the waging of the liberation struggle, which eventually culminated in independence in 1980 (Habib 2011). However, it is important to note that at independence, the newly established black government led by former President Robert Mugabe could not address land inequalities inherited from colonialism due to constitutional
provisions requiring land transfers to be done under markets for the first 10 years after the onset of Independence (Moyo 1995). Such a clause was also inserted in the South African and Namibian constitutions, leading to the stalling of agrarian transformation. The other option to pursue land transfers would have been through a radical land redistribution exercise in defiance of the Constitution and the Lancaster House Agreement.
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