This briefing explores the strategy of permaculture as a promising development approach for addressing food and nutrition insecurity for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).

In particular, it argues that permaculture is relevant to OVC in the context of HIV for reasons such as this: "When parents die prematurely, knowledge and skills relating to agriculture, food, health, and culture are often not transferred to children. Bringing permaculture into school curricula helps recover this knowledge base among inschool children....It supports the delivery of important lessons on taking responsibility for one's actions and acting ethically toward other people and the environment. Permaculture lessons emphasize links between growing food; dietary diversity; nutrition; water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH); and healthy (or 'positive') living. Finally, the hands-on nature of permaculture lessons lend itself to be taught to children, youth, and adults of all levels of literacy."

The briefing is made available here by kind permission of The Commuication Initiative Network, and is supported by AIDSTAR-One.