Mwasewela bwanji and greetings from Malawi! As a 2009 Fellow for Beyond Good Intentions I am traveling around the country to conduct field-based research on the effectiveness of aid organizations and to explore innovative strategies. While I believe in the importance of international aid, I also believe in the responsibility of donor communities in evaluating the organizations to which their funds are channeled to ensure that the right people are receiving the aid, and to make sure that the aid is used effectively to promote long-term solutions to poverty alleviation. My first week I met with Zilani Khonje of ActionAid in their Lilongwe office to investigate their work in Malawi.
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25 May 2009
Country background:
Malawi, considered “the warm heart of Africa”, is a country with a population of 11.9 million and one of the poorest countries in the world. The life expectancy is 38 years, low from malnutrition, disease, and HIV/AIDS. Malawi is an agricultural society and is heavily dependent upon maize as a staple crop. The main food Malawians eat is nsima, a porridge made from maize. Very few families can afford not to take nsima every day. Natural disasters such as floods (at least five in the past twenty years) have resulted in food crises, and malnutrition is rampant. Forty-two percent of children in Malawi are stunted. In addition to food insecurity, Malawians are kept in poverty from diseases (such as malaria and tuberculosis), which are made even deadlier for those infected with the HIV/AIDS virus—fourteen percent of the population. Those who are ill from HIV are often unable to work to full capacity and may miss important days of planting, resulting in fewer crops to harvest and less money and food. In addition, persons, especially women and girls, are taken from work in the fields and from school to care for sick family members. In order to pay for treatment and food, some people develop coping mechanisms; for example, women and girls may engage in transactional sex as a source of income, placing them at risk of sexual exploitation as well as making them vulnerable to AIDS and other diseases. Lack of education is a serious problem in Malawi, especially for girls, and more than 38 percent of the population are illiterate (UNICEF). All these combine to continue the cycle of poverty that plagues the country.
ActionAid: The Rights-Based Approach
ActionAid is an anti-poverty organization that operates in many nations across the world and has been active in Malawi since 1990. The five main issues the organization addresses are women’s rights, democratic governance, education, food security, and HIV/AIDS; in Malawi, there is a special emphasis on women’s rights and education. ActionAid partners with governmental programs, other aid organizations, and especially local communities to address these needs and to work to alleviate poverty.
One difference in ActionAid’s methods compared to other large-scale international aid organizations is that ActionAid uses a rights-based approach to address the root causes of poverty in Malawi, rather than simply providing aid for short-term solutions. Instead of distributing food on a large-scale basis, ActionAid works with farmer’s cooperatives and unions and aids crop diversification programs to promote food security. Other initiatives, especially those proposed by the local people, promote gender equality, education, health, and small business growth. Perhaps ActionAid’s greatest strength is in its partnering with local communities and organizations.
Under ActionAid’s Right to Food Theme, the organization aided partners LANDNET, the Farmers Union, and the Coalition of Women Farmers. Under the HungerFREE Campaign women have begun to engage with traditional leaders to demand their portions of land. In Chitipa, especially, chiefs have responded by giving land to women farmers.
ActionAid’s strategies include mobilizing women farmers and gaining access over land for them, providing technical support for increased food production and better nutrition, and, at the local level, working with farmer’s associations and cooperatives in supporting food diversification and opportunities for markets. In Mwanza, ActionAid provided support for the establishment of an Irrigation and Grain Legume Association and cooperative; these have benefited the district population by making agricultural marketing easier. The associations are able to identify markets and negotiate better prices for members, giving smallholder farmers a fair share of the market. These associations in other districts, such as in Khosolo, maximize profits for farmers by cutting out the middlemen and saving on transportation costs. The farmer’s associations are then able to open an input shop.
In Salima, there are 2,000 poor households that are run by women. In this district, ActionAid supported a revolving credit scheme run by a farmer’s association that provided farm input to 180 men and women living with HIV. Through grain banks, also managed by the farmer’s association, 35 metric tons of maize were distributed on credit to nearly 500 poor households that had run out of food so that the people will have food until the next harvest.
Because food security is hurt by cyclical disasters in Malawi, such as floods, ActionAid has supported methods to protect against natural disasters. In 2007 the organization conducted a Participatory Vulnerability Analysis (PVA) in Nsanje to allow communities to identify their vulnerability and plan what they can do with their own resources, as well as what other stakeholders such as NGOs, and the government, can do to supplement their efforts.
One method of ActionAid that separates it from some other international aid organizations is its focus on mobilizing the local people to recognize their rights, identify their own problems, and to propose and implement their own solutions. This is in keeping with ActionAid’s rights-based approach. For example, the youth of a community decided that not enough girls were enrolled in school; because the schools were far apart, the girls did not attend as frequently, and therefore did not receive an education. The girls of the area took the initiative to propose a solution: building a new local school, of which 75 percent of the pupils would be girls. In Mwanza, women demanded access to safe water, and were supported by ActionAid in launching their own water projects. The women were given funds to complete three gravity water projects, which have benefited almost 1,000 households from three surrounding villages. In Phalombe, women were forced to walk long distances to have access to safe water, and so the village women came together and formed a proposal. Their initiative started the Water Project, which was soon after handed over by ActionAid to the community.
Because poverty is exacerbated by gender inequality and vice versa (gender relations suffer under poverty), ActionAid is working to empower women. The organization has continuously provided training to educate women about their rights and responsibilities. Attracting 60 participants at both the regional and district level, women were able to claim rights in their own communities; for example, in Chiradzulu district, in south Malawi, women were successful in lobbying the traditional Authorities for land for the building of Model Community Based Outreach Centres. In 2007 ActionAid trained 140 women from Salima and Lilongwe Peri-urban districts in business management. The number of women participating in the program in 2007 reached 300 from just 50 the year before. Members bought livestock (such as goats, pigs, and chickens), while others were able to get capital for small-scale businesses. Because of these economic gains, women are able to pay school fees for children, build houses, and buy farm inputs such as fertilizers and seeds.
ActionAid supports a number of local Girls Clubs throughout Malawi that provide a space where female youth encourage each other to remain in school and discuss issues related to sexuality and HIV. The clubs also enable girls to speak out on issues and problems affecting them and to find solutions, especially with regards to violence against girls in schools. ActionAid also supports mother groups that work to bring girls back to school and are trained to monitor girls’ school performance and teacher-student relations. Mother groups in Nsanje were able to bring 186 girls back to school in a year. Within ActionAid’s impact area, girl enrollment in schools has increased at an average of 45.5 percent. With regards to education, the organization has also aided in adult literacy classes, building classrooms, and training teachers.
HIV affects so many of the population in Malawi, and so ActionAid has made it a priority to focus on its education, prevention, and health. In addition, across the country the organization has many support groups that work to empower those affected by the virus. In Salima, ActionAid worked with five support groups in the establishment of herbal gardens and small scale livestock production for those with HIV. In this way the community members with HIV are able to provide for their families, food, and treatment with dignity. Malomo Community AIDS Team has been running income-generating activities such as soap making and raising pigs, and its members distribute small loans to each other for small-scale personal business.
ActionAid seems to be a major international organization that works not to achieve temporary solutions to poverty but to address its fundamental causes. As with most larger aid organizations, ActionAid needs to work to ensure accountability, to increase efficiency, and also to make sure its program workers better understand the rights-based approach. However, through its support of women’s empowerment, promoting food stability and crop diversification, aiding small businesses, providing assistance to those with HIV to form projects to provide for themselves, and uplifting girls in education, ActionAid is truly making some impact at the local and national levels, one community at a time.
