Entwined Endemics: HIV and 'Law and Order'

Papua New Guinea has two entwined endemics: a complex ‘law and order’ problem and entrenched HIV. Each has serious implications for the nation’s future. Together they pose joint challenges and joint opportunities, most fundamentally for efforts to realise ‘civic security’ that may confer some immunity to both. This chapter surveys HIV and ‘law and order’ in PNG. It scopes broader dynamics in the governance of security, and the contributory roles of state, community, and their interface. It highlights how synergies of HIV and ‘law and order’ can create vicious spirals or virtuous circles. The potentials of a public health approach for improving the governance of security and of ‘law and order’ measures for helping prevent and manage HIV are also stressed. While in theory the state is primarily responsible for the security of its citizens, in PNG we suggest that it may be more fruitful to ask: how can this young, postcolonial state best promote or facilitate civic security? We see one possible means in models of community governance.