Sexual behaviour in the face of risk: the case of bar girls in Malawi's major cities

The first case of AIDS in Malawi was diagnosed in 1985. The close association of AIDS with sexual promiscuity led the Ministry of Health to mount a campaign to create awareness of the dangers of promiscuous sex. Surveys so far carried out indicate that about 80 per cent of bar girls carried the HIV virus. This study sought to investigate why young women became bar girls, how much they knew about AIDS, and why they persisted in what is regarded as a high-risk occupation. The study revealed that economic necessity was a major consideration in engaging and persisting in commercial sex. Poverty then may be a major factor in the rapid spread of AIDS in Malawi

Immigrant-Host Community Relations in Malawi’s Community Based Rural Land Development Project (CBRLDP)

Access to land among land-poor households has always been contentious. In Malawi, the government,  aware of this, started Community Based Rural Based Land Development Project (CBRLDP), financed by the World Bank. The project brought to the fore the latent antagonistic relationship between immigrants and host communities. This paper examines the antagonistic relationship that developed between one of the beneficiary groups of the project and their hosts in Chigumula village, Traditional Authority (TA) Liwonde’s area in Machinga district. Focus group discussion reveals that Resettlement of groups, whether sponsored or spontaneous, carries with it a potential for conflict with resident population arising from among otherthings competition for resources, status, power and dominance.Keywords: resettlement; relocation; beneficiary groups; host community; land redistribution; land poverty

African Linguistics in Central and Eastern Europe, and in the Nordic Countries

Non peer reviewe

Language endangerment and language documentation in Africa

Non peer reviewe

Book Review: James N. Amanze,African Traditional Religion in Malawi: the Case of the Bimbi Cult. Blantyre: CLAIM, 2002 ISBN 99908-16- 38-7, 228 pp. (Paperback)

James N. Amanze,African Traditional Religion in Malawi: the Case of the Bimbi Cult.  Blantyre: CLAIM, 2002 ISBN 99908-16- 38-7, 228 pp. (Paperback

Community Project Funding in Malawi under the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) Demand-Driven Approach: Potential for Perpetuating Imbalances in Development

This paper gives an overview of the kind of community development projects that the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) has supported since its inception in July 1996. The MASAF has tended to subscribe to a demand-driven approach in its evaluation of projects, thereby introducing an element of competition in commu nity development. This has led to imbalances in socio-economic infrastructure, between those districts whose communities have been unable to initiate their own projects, and those where there is more sophisticated “development-conscious” leadership. Ways in which more equitable and effective grassroots development can be implemented are presented in this paper, where the author believes that non governmental development agencies in particular, have a positive role to play. Journal of Social Development in Africa Vol 15 No 1 2000, pp. 5-1