UNESCO Chair in HIV AIDS Education and Health Security in Africa, Aberystwyth University (2007)
Purpose/Objectives of the Chair
For much of this decade there has been a consensus that HIV/AIDS has the potential to significantly affect individual, national and regional security, and that positioning HIV/AIDS as part of the global security agenda may also leverage additional funds and political attention to the AIDS crisis in Africa. Research and engagement is required, however, both to understand the complex linkages between HIV, AIDS and security, and in order to mitigate the potential pitfalls in portraying HIV/AIDS as a security issue. Up until now, almost all of this work has been done in the north.
The primary purpose of the UNESCO Chair in HIV/AIDS Education and Health Security in Africa is to engage with researchers and policy makers in southern Africa working on these questions, to exchange knowledge, to examine and develop the empirical data, to consolidate the analysis, and to consider the policy consequences.
Chairholder Professor Colin McInnes
Address: Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Penglais, Aberystwyth, SY23 3FE, UK
Email: cjm [at] aber.ac.uk
Tel: + 44 (0)1970 622691
Fax: + 44 (0)1970 622709
Colin McInnes is Head of the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University and Chairholder of the UNESCO Chair in HIV/AIDS Education and Health Security in Africa. He was formerly a lecturer in the Department of War Studies, The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst; Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for Defence Studies, King's College London; and Special Adviser to the House of Commons Defence Committee. Professor McInnes has published widely and his most recent book, Spectator Sport War: The West and Contemporary Conflict, was a Choice ‘Outstanding academic title’.
Over the past few years he has been working on the relationship between health and foreign and security policy, especially in relation to HIV/AIDS. He is a member of The Nuffield Trust’s advisory board on global health policy and has contributed extensively to the debate in the UK and overseas. He is currently working on a major study on the relationship between health, foreign and security policy, and is writing a book on the securitisation of HIV/AIDS. He is Director of the Centre for Health and International Relations at Aberystwyth, Chair of the British International Studies Association, and a member of the ESRC’s Strategic Research Board.
Select Activity
- PUBLICATION: Willliams, Owain D. and Adrian Kay eds. The Crisis of Global Health Governance: Crisis, Institutions and Political Economy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
- PUBLICATION: McInnes, Colin “Conflict, HIV and AIDS: a new dynamic in warfare?” in Global Change, Peace and Security Vol 21 Issue 1, February 2009, pp.99-114.
The argument that there is a link between conflict and the spread of HIV has become commonplace in both the academic and policy world. This article examines five key reasons offered for this link: the high HIV prevalence in many militaries; that conflict leads to migration which acts as a vector for the spread of the disease; the changes in sexual behaviour introduced by conflict, including increased incidence of rape; reduced health provision and support as a result of conflict; and the risks introduced in post-conflict settings. The article argues that these reasons offer a poor explanation as to why HIV is spread in some conflicts but not others and develops a new model to explain when conflict might lead to the spread of HIV. - SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT: Professor Colin McInnes gave the keynote address on ‘HIV, AIDS and Security: where are we now?’ to the 2nd Annual Conference of the [Australian] National Centre for Biosecurity, hosted by the University of Sydney, in February 2009.
- RESEARCH PROJECT: The UNESCO Chair is undertaking a four-year ERC funded research project on ‘The Transformation of Global Health Governance: Competing World Views and Crises'. The project began in January 2009.
- RESEARCH PROJECT: The UNESCO Chair is undertaking a four-year ERC funded research project on ‘The Transformation of Global Health Governance: Competing World Views and Crises'
