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Implementation of the project “Understanding and Implementing Climate Change
Policy for Rural Livelihoods in Malawi” commenced in May 2007. The
objective of the project is to facilitate local level awareness and
empowerment in climate change and disaster risk reduction policy and the
requisite adaptation measures to enable local communities cope with impacts
of climate change. The project basically follows a two pronged approach,
namely a) identify and analyze community experiences with the effects of
climate change, and b) use those experiences to design capacity building interventions
and inform policy development processes.
CEPA identified two districts which are the most vulnerable to climate
change for piloting the project activities. These were Nsanje, in the Lower
Shire and Salima, along the lakeshore. A series of consultative meetings
were held with affected communities and relevant stakeholders at village,
area and district level. The main observations included the following:
• There has been changing trends in climatic conditions which include
irregular rainfall pattern and flooding;
• Most of the climate change related events are being blamed on poor
environmental and natural resources management;
• Climatic conditions are still the predominant factors affecting
agricultural productivity and changes in these conditions have different
severe effects on small scale farmers; and
• There is need to critically analyze the way communities adapt to floods
and droughts and then develop policy options so as to strengthen adaptation
to climate change.
CEPA also commissioned policy research on climate change. The research came
up with four position papers. The main conclusions from the position papers
included:
• During the last two decades there has been an increase in rainfall,
temperature and frequency of extreme events such as floods and droughts;
• Most climate change policy related documents and strategies are not well
disseminated to the intended beneficiaries and implementing agents;
• Climate change presents a number of challenges on agro-biodiversity in
Malawi given that the country is a predominantly agricultural economy;
• Understanding livelihoods approaches in climate change and disaster risk
reduction is very important as these are the very approaches the
communities need to use in order to cope with and recover from stresses and
shocks; and
• Droughts and floods are exposing the crisis in livelihoods of smallholder
farmers and these include limited income opportunities in the face of
increased floods and droughts which have forced women to engage in unsafe sex
practices, exposing them to greater risk of HIV.
The case study results, policy briefs and leaflets on climate change were
disseminated to different stakeholders ranging from the affected
communities to policy makers.
Furthermore, capacity building programmes were implemented at community
level. These covered areas such as trends in climate change, effects of
climate change on smallholder farmers, policy response to climate change
and adaptation and coping mechanisms to climate change. These were aimed at
improving community’s resilience to climate change and preparing them to
effectively contribute to national policy debate. A national workshop was
successfully organized for government departments, civil society and
affected communities to discuss findings from the case studies and initiate
policy dialogue.
Working towards facilitating local level awareness and empowerment in
climate change and disaster risk reduction policy issues, the project has
accomplished milestones in a number of areas. These include: improving the
individual performance of the local institutional framework responsible for
disaster risk reduction (civil protection committees) in the pilot areas
and policy makers have been made aware of the need to develop specific
climate change policy for Malawi based on the dialogue they have had with
local communities who are directly experiencing the effects of climate
change.
Despite the progress made a number of challenges have been encountered in
the course of project implementation. These included: delays in commencing
implementation due to late signing of the agreement and inaccessibility of
some of the case study areas due to poor road status.
As the project moves into the second year of implementation, it will be
imperative to consider improving coordination amongst civil society
organizations involved in climate change and disaster risk reduction,
extending the scope of case studies both in existing sites and covering the
northern Malawi district of Karonga and increasing the range of activities
to include television and radio documentary. This will strengthen the
dissemination of information to a wider range of stakeholders and
consequently assist in influencing policy makers.
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