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- Salima woman with compost mound
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- women posing with their solar vegetable dryer
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- MLBP funds activities to acquire livestock and animals; this woman is displaying a newly built cage in anticipation of the arrival of guinea pigs and goats for the community
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- Salima girl and sibling. Both are cared for by the community-based childcare centre
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- teacher and Group Secretary outside the community-based childcare centre
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- Programme Director Marcello Dougnac
In place of setting up their own independent organizations to work in the country, some organizations are working more with local communities and supplying funding for local programs to alleviate poverty. Malawi Lake Basin Programme (MLBP) has a different approach than such organizations as UNICEF and WorldVision in that it is funded by two Scandivanian organizations who are involved in the planning but work to empower existing community organizations.
In July I visited Programme Director Marcello Dougnac at the Salima Tembwe Field Office and visited various community groups and programs MLBP is helping.
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The Malawi Lake Basin Programme, co-funded by the Swedish Cooperative Union (Kooperation Utan Granser) and Vi Agroforestry (Viskogen), primarily operates in Districts Salima and Mangochi and the surrounding areas, although claims a surface presence at the national level. The main targets are the nation’s extreme poor, 80% of whom are clustered in the southern part of the lake. The focus strategy is what Programme director Marcelo Dougnac of the Swedish Cooperative Centre refers to as the “volcano method”. According to Dougnac, there are two ways to make a change: one can “bomb” from the top and “make a hole”—a top-down strategy—or one can mimic a volcano and work at a grassroots level, from the bottom-up, and create an “explosion”.
The “volcano” is the movement aided by the Programme to address a variety of factors contributing to poverty in the area and to set in motion a chain of events that are slowly building the communities. The Programme empowers farmers—particularly women—in the area and funds organizations such as NASFAM (National Association of Farmers in Malawi) and FUM( Farmer’s Union of Malawi). The Programme sponsors crop diversification and extra household income-generating activities to better income security and lessen dependence upon maize.
Currently the Programme has ended its first period of three years, and the Swedish Cooperative Centre recently signed a new 5-year agreement with Norway for funding the program. The first part of the program, Norwegian ambassador Björn Johannessen had remarked, was intended to create the new opportunities for the people; now it is time to make use of them. The Programme targets food and income security, power relations and gender equality, group savings and loans, and technology ; and with these improvements, the local people have contributed the extra income to provide for projects of their own to better their communities.
Food and Income Security and Local Economic Growth
MLBP funds NASFAM and FUM, the two major farmer’s organizations in Malawi, and has had success in bringing the two organizations together to negotiate in tandem with the government for farmer’s rights and fair prices. Previously FUM has been known for lobbying for rights and for mobilization of farmers, while NASFAM concentrates more on the marketing aspects and business development. To a great extent MLBP has facilitated collaboration between the groups.
The Chief Executives from NASFAM, FUM, and MUSCCO have met with their sister organizations in Sweden, in addition to their participation in the SACAU, to increase their opportunities to influence policies at the regional and international level. Through the Programme, cluster marketing committees, EPA Associations and District Unions have been established as well, in addition to leadership training of over 100 farmer’s groups.
Dougnac, who has been in the area nearly 30 years and in Malawi since 1999, has stated the need for a holistic approach: in addition to selling and marketing and generating capital through production, the Programme should recognize the rights of farmers and create change in response to these rights.
Initially the four EPAs where the Programme has operated were mono producers, growing only maize during the winter season; MLBP has introduced integrated agriculture such as marketable field crops, fruit trees, and vegetable production. The Programme has provided on-loan start-up capital as farm inputs. To better household incomes, MLBP has introduced and supported activities such as eco/agro tourism, bee keeping, carpentry, fish farming, and tailoring as well as food processing technologies—for example solar drying for long-term storage.
One of the MLBP’s major goals is to transform the subsistence economy and household production into market-oriented production and commercial agriculture. In order to promote local economic growth and organization development, MLBP continues to fund NASFAM, FUM, and MUSCCO and is focusing on organizational leadership and competent services for its members, for example agricultural inputs, rural financial services and produce marketing systems.
Power Relations and Equality
A greater number of the poor in Malawi are women as a consequence of discrimination and subordination in social practices, which also means the women face greater hurdles in conquering poverty. MLBP has addressed this issue from the beginning of its pilot program, even biasing itself in favor of and emphasizing women participation—a strategy Dougnac dubbed “positive segregation”– so that 70% of the Programme’s farmers are female. Since 2008 75% of women in the district households held leadership positions in the Programme. MLBP provides training in group dynamics and leadership, which has increased the majority participation of women in decision-making positions in the groups supported by the programme, in addition to forming women farmer’s district structures in Salima and Mangochi.
“The effects of activism have been extraordinary,” Marcello Dougnac says, as Blandina, the woman in charge of the Salima Tembwe office, agrees. With added power and responsibility, women are taking charge of their finances and bettering their households with extra income—and arguing and speaking out with their male counterparts during meetings.
Technology
One problem facing the Lake districts of Malawi is general deforestation. MLBP has introduced eco-brick making machines that form strong interlocking bricks without burning and which require very little concrete. The Programme distributes the machines and provides training, for example to eight youth groups in the Salima and Mangochi districts. Fruit and vegetable solar dryers are used for drying locally grown fruits and vegetables (such as mangoes and leafy vegetables), allowing for storage in the non-growing seasons. In addition the Programme funds the distribution of small oil extractors for gathering oils from crops such as sunflowers, which can be locally grown on a wide scale to multiply household income.
Group Savings and Loans
As of December 2008, 101 groups for savings and loans had been established in Salima and Mangochi. The groups have involved 2,525 households and have aided 17,675 persons, 75% of whom are women, with a total of USD 10,600. The long-term plan is to further develop the savings groups into savings and credit cooperative organizations (SACCOS). The farmers use the savings to acquire farm inputs in addition to meet domestic needs throughout the year.
Malawian-run, Scandinavian Funded
The Swedish Cooperative Centre works in 48 countries in Asia, eastern Europe, Africa, and Latin America. The SCC believes that developing countries need to work with other countries, and that the developed world can use their resources to help the developing sector.
MLBP took two years to plan—before the SCC funds any venture, the community organization or program is required to make a business plan detailing the project and how it will be sustainable; the SCC will not invest in any activity without this initial planning.
The Programme, however, is very much Malawian; SCC is a neutral organization that oversees the funding. The Programme Consortium is comprised of five organizations: MUSCCO (Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives), FUM, NASFAM, SCC and Vi Agroforestry. Each organization is allowed one vote. The Programme itself is the responsibility of management; the team is Malawian (excluding Dougnac). Furthermore, before MLBP will fund activities in a community, it is up to the local people to first take the initiative and plan what they want to accomplish and to begin the venture.
Study Circles and the Ripple Effect
One aspect of MLBP that supports the communities is the training and study circles implemented. Study circles are an old method that began in Scandinavia after the first world war, when people met to discuss post-war issues, and today is one of the most widely used ways to acquire knowledge. In south and eastern Africa, the SCC translated study materials originally produced in English into Chichewa, one of the main languages of Malawi, and are beginning to translate them into Tumbuka (regional northern Malawian language). The effects are increased literacy and problem solving as communities meet to discuss relevant issues and how to solve them. The number of Malawi Lake Basin Programme participants in study groups are 83 in Salima and 78 in Mangochi; throughout the nation, they are 3,243 (*as of July 2009).
Study Circles in Salima and Mangochi have then implemented community-based centres to support orphaned children and have established vegetable gardens to support the elderly and widows. MLBP provides start-up inputs to fund these endeavors. In turn, Study Circles contribute towards savings mobilization for the SACCO movement and initiate new activities and programs to generate income for their districts. Slowly they are supporting the disenfranchised in their communities with added income. Through initial funding and support, MLBP provides the finances and means for communities to slowly take over and create their own projects to alleviate poverty.
Other Projects
MLBP recognizes that not all projects have produced success; for example, contract farming was begun in 2008 with mixed results. MLBP had supported contracts between private buyers and farmer groups; however, the private entrepreneurs were “unable to fulfill their responsibility and abandoned farmers without explanation”(Annual Report).
