Judith Twaili shows where she used to dry the fish catch when business was better. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
MANGOCHI, Malawi, Dec 21 2018 (IPS)

Lake Malawi, Africa’s third largest lake, provides an economic lifeline to many fishing families. But overfishing is affecting many of these lives, with women being affected the most.

The lake, also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, has the largest number of endemic fish species in the world — 90 percent out of the almost 1,000 species of fish in the lake can’t be found anywhere else in the world.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development estimates that fishing contributes about four percent to Malawi’s gross domestic product (GDP), and that it employs about 300,000 people.

However, that is probably not the case now because fish stocks in the lake have been dwindling over the years due to over-fishing and women are the hardest hit.

Judith Kananji’s life-changing story tells it all. Kananji who is from a fishing family in Micesi Village Traditional Authority Mponda, in the lakeshore district of Mangochi, says she has in the meantime stopped purchasing fish because the trade is no longer lucrative compared to in previous years.

“The problem is that the fish is no longer found in abundance and it’s only the small fish available at the moment and it’s expensive. Unlike before we were having bigger fish which was easy to make profits. This time around it is hard to purchase small fish to sell at a higher price,” she told IPS.

“About 8 years ago, I used to make a good profit from capital of about MK100, 000 (137 dollars). But now it is even impossible to make profits with a working capital of MK800, 000 (1,095 dollars),” she said.

According to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), protocol report, “Years ago, it was the norm to catch about 5,000 fish a day, but now, fishers catch about one-fifth of that, or even as less as a mere 300 fish a day.”

Kananji said that the increase of fishing vessels on the lake has negatively contributed to depleting fish levels because there is stiff competition among the fishermen, which is leading to overfishing.

But SADC also said, “The rapid drop in Lake Malawi’s water levels, driven by population growth, climate change and deforestation, is threatening its flora and fauna species with extinction.”

Kananji said: “Sadly it is us women who buy fish from fishermen who have been pushed out of business because fishermen in most cases raise their prices to meet operating costs whenever there is a small catch.”

“This works to our disadvantage because fish prices at the market are always low,” she added.

Just like Kananji, Chrissy Mbatata received a loan from a micro finance lending institution popularly known as village bank to bank roll her fish selling business.

Mbatata is, however, in more trouble. She is currently struggling to settle the loan.

“Initially it was easy for me to pay the loan and support my family because I was making good money. Now it is even hard to break even. Fish is not available and I don’t know where the money to pay back the loan and support my family will come from,” Mbatata told IPS.

The dwindling fish is not only affecting businesses but also the protein intake in a country where the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund says around 46 percent of children under five are stunted, 21 percent are underweight, and four percent are wasted and Micronutrient deficiencies are common.

“Chambo [the famous local fish] used to be the cheapest source of protein for us but now it’s now a luxury we only can afford at month-ends. Imagine a single fish going at K1 800 (2.4 dollars)?” said Angela Malajira, a widow of four from Lilongwe’s Area 23 suburb.

To reverse the trend government and fishing communities have found sustainable ways to harness the industry by setting up some rules and empower chiefs to implement them.

Every year, the government prohibits fishing on the lake from the month of November to December 31 to allow breeding to take place.

Interestingly this has been well received, without any resistance, from fishing communities because they understand the importance of increasing the fish levels in the lake.

Instead the communities have formulated their own bylaws outlawing fishing from November to March —  extending the fishing for 5 months.

Vice Chairperson for Makanjira Beach Village Committee Malufu Shaibu said the fishing communities agree that fishing on the lake should shut down for a long time because it has shown that the move can help to improve fish levels on lake.

He explained that during the past five months, assessment has shown that there are more fish species and volume that have started to be seen on the lake as opposed to when the lake was closed for two months
only.

“We want the lake to be closed for six months. We are glad that now we have a lot of fish due to the prolonged time of breeding which we gave the fish,” said Shaibu.

“Our children will now be able to see fish the way we saw them. The benefits for closing the lake for a long time are more than the disadvantage.”

But Shaibu, like Kananji, complained that commercial fishermen are derailing their efforts to improve fish stocks.

Mangochi District Fisheries Officer Thomas Nyasulu said that an office they are working with the newly revived Fisheries Association of Malawi to rein in on big commercial fishermen on the lake.
He said closing the lake for a long period of time would make their work more easy and fulfilling.

“It is good that the fishermen are suggesting this move. It can really help a lot. On regulating the commercial fishermen, we are working with fisheries association of Malawi in making sure that all big fishermen are following their fishing grounds,” said Nyasulu.

The bylaws are working. In April this year a 40-year-old man was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of K800,000 (1,095 dollars) or in default serve 60 months imprisonment with hard labour for fishing on the lake when had closed contravening the  fisheries conservation and Management Act.

The Magistrate Court sentenced Kennedy Fatchi of Makawa Village in the area of Traditional Authority Mponda in the district after he pleaded guilty to the charges.

Police prosecutor Maxwell Mwaluka told the court that on March 4, 2018 the chiefs working with the Fisheries Inspectorate in the district came across a commercial fishing company on the lake fishing.

He said the team seized the fishing materials and the convict was charged with three counts which he pleaded guilty to.

“This is the only way we can go back to having more fish in our lake which would inadvertently improve our lives,” said Kananji.

Prone to annual droughts and floods which impact greatly on agricultural production, Malawi is focusing on preventative measures to address malnutrition. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Malawi, Nov 30 2015 (IPS)

In the last few years, Malawi has successfully managed to reduce infant and under five mortality. But reducing malnutrition, which affects an estimated 1.4 million children, continues to be a costly challenge for the country.

A 2015 report by the Government of Malawi, the World Food Programme (WFP) together with other UN agencies, and the African Union, estimates the total annual cost associated with child malnutrition at $597 million – an indication that chronic food and nutrition insecurity are still prevalent in the southern African nation.

To change the alarming malnutrition rates, the Government of Malawi and the United Nations Food Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have come up with several initiatives anchored on increased agriculture production to improve nutrition.

Erica Maganga, Secretary for Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, tells IPS that the role agriculture plays to fight all forms of malnutrition is inescapable.

“Prevention is better than cure and agriculture is key to reduce malnutrition for all ages and help reduce the cost of treating malnutrition,” says Maganga.

FAO resident representative in Malawi Florence Rolle agrees.

“We all know that nutrition is an issue in Malawi and that agriculture has a role to play in contributing to improving nutritional status of children, women and men,” Rolle says.

“It is now time to identify which existing agricultural programmes have potential to become much more nutrition sensitive,” she adds.

In 2008, FAO and the Malawi government started implementing a project titled Improving Food Security and Nutrition Policies and Programme Outreach (IFSN). One component of the programme was to roll out a comprehensive nutritional education programme targeting families with infants between 6 to 24 months to prevent malnutrition.

With financial support from Flanders International Cooperation Agency (FICA), the programme targeted two districts — Kasungu, just 100 km from the capital Lilongwe and Mzimba in northern Malawi.

According to Soka Chitaya, District Project Manager for Kasungu, the programme has had impact on the health status of many children in the district

“Before the programme started, many infants used to get sick. Mothers, most of them peasant farmers, used to struggle, which affected their yields because they spent more time at hospital nursing their sick children than in their gardens,” Chitaya says.

But he says the story is now different.

Kondwani Phiri, 32, of Yosefe Village, a mother of four, has nothing but praises for the programme.

“This project has changed my life. My children are healthy and happy because I now know what to plant in my gardens to have nutritious food for my family,” Phiri told IPS while preparing a meal for her children in the scorching November heat.

But she is worried that if the rains delay any later this year, she may lose all the gains she made in the last few years.

Malawi is among countries in Africa forecast to experience drought in the central regions and flooding in the southern regions as a result of the El Nino weather pattern.

Loveness Matola, another happy mother, expects a tough year as a farmer because rains have already delayed, but she is confident she will pull through and have enough food for her family. “This programme allowed me to enroll my child under the Infants and Young Children Feeding Programme. I no longer worry because I now know how to grow nutritious food from my garden,” she said.

With support from Extension Workers, Health Surveillance Assistants and Volunteer Community Facilitators, Phiri and Matola, together with other mothers, have been taught how to make a nutritious porridge out of three or four ingredients grown in their gardens.

The porridge contains a starchy food such as mashed potatoes, cassava or maize flour; a high protein food such as beans, groundnut flour, fish or meat powder or goat milk, mixed with a vegetable, for example pumpkins or leafy vegetables and a fat such as avocado oil. Mango or any other fruit is served to complete the daily recommended five-food groups for the child.

Among other focus areas, the project has taken on board the promotion of livestock production; climate change, natural resources and environmental education; capacity building and institutional support; increased crop production and diversification; promotion of fruit production; soil and water conservation; potable water and improved sanitation, and other cross-cutting issues such as gender, malaria and HIV.

This is not the only intervention that FAO and the Malawi government are implementing to improve nutrition across the country.

“Strengthening School Nutrition Education and School Gardens” is the name of another initiative being implemented.

The Malawi government, FAO and the Brazilian government signed a trilateral agreement with three main components namely: reviewing the School Health and Nutrition Strategy Plan, Nutrition Education and Integration of Nutrition Education and School Gardens.

FAO’s School, Food and Nutrition Specialist, Dr Andrea Polo Galante explained that the initiative aims to improve nutrition education, which focuses on more food and eating well.

According to Thoko Banda, Chief Director for the Ministry of Education, the review is earmarked to make recommendations to incorporate in the curricula of Teacher Training Colleges.

(End)

South Africa’s white rhinoceros recovered from near-extinction thanks to intense conservation efforts. Credit: Kanya D’Almeida/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Nov 12 2014 (IPS)

“We are underpaid, have no guns and in most instances are outnumbered by the poachers,” says Stain Phiri, a ranger at Vwaza Marsh Wildlife Reserve — a 986 km reserve said to have the most abundant and a variety of wildlife in Malawi —  which also happens to be one of the country’s biggest game parks under siege by poachers.

Phiri’s fears probably sum up the reason why there has been a surge in poaching of elephants tusks and rhino horns in southern Africa in recent years.

“We can’t fight the motivated gangs of poachers who are heavily armed and ready to kill anyone getting in their way,” Phiri tells IPS.

He says he is paid a monthly field allowance equivalent to about 20 dollars dollars, which is not enough to take care of his family of six.

“My colleagues and I risk our lives everyday protecting wildlife and it seems we are not appreciated because even when we arrest poachers, the police release them,” says Phiri.

Malawi’s Wildlife Act, he says, also needs serious amendments to empower and protect ranges and to also impose stiffer penalties if the government is serious about tackling wildlife crimes.

Phiri’s story resonates across southern Africa and gives insight into the challenges the region is facing maintaining transfrontier parks and managing wildlife crime.

TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network that looks at trade in animals and plants globally, says well-equipped, sufficiently resourced rangers are needed on the ground to protect the animals and prevent poaching in the first instance.

Dr Richard Thomas, the global communications co-ordinator of TRAFFIC, tells IPS that most countries in southern Africa have increasingly become the target for poachers because it is a region that has the most rhino and elephants in the world.

“Southern Africa is home to more rhinos than any other region in the world, with around 95 percent of all white rhino and 40 percent of all black rhino,” he says.

According to TRAFFIC, 25,000 African elephants were killed in 2011, while 22,000 were killed in 2012 and just over 20,000 in 2013. This, TRAFFIC says, is out of a population estimated between 420,000 and 650,000.

Last year, Zambia lost a total of 135 elephants to poaching. In 2012 the country lost 124 elephants and in 2011 96 elephants were killed by poachers, according Zambian Tourism and Arts Minister Sylvia Masebo.

The same is true for Mozambique. The country’s local media have quoted Tourism Minister Carvalho Muaria as saying that the elephant population has declined by about half since the early 1970s. There are currently only about 20,000 left.

The Niassa Reserve, an area of 42,000 square km and home to about two-thirds of Mozambique’s elephants, now has about 12,000 elephants. Poachers killed 500 elephants last year and have wiped out Mozambique’s rhinos, Muaria says.

TRAFFIC says between 2007 and 2013 rhino poaching increased by 7,700 percent on the continent. There are only estimated to now be 5,000 black rhino and 20,000 white rhino.

Last month, South Africa reported that it had lost 558 rhinos to poachers so far this year.

But not all hope is lost. Southern Africa is responding to the threats to its wildlife by collaborating between countries that share borders and protected areas for wildlife.

A case in point is this year’s anti-poaching agreement between Mozambique and South Africa, which aims to stop rhino poaching mostly in the Kruger National Park, which shares a border with Mozambique. The two countries agreed to share intelligence and jointly develop anti-poaching techniques to curb rhino poaching.

Mozambique, said to be a major transit route for rhino horn trafficked to Asia, this year approved a new law that will impose heavy penalties of up to 12 years on anyone found guilty of poaching rhino.

“Previous laws didn’t penalise poaching, but we think this law will discourage Mozambicans who are involved in poaching,” Muaria tells IPS.

South Africa, according to press reports, is also considering legalising the rhino horn trade in an attempt to limit illegal demand by allowing the sale of horns from rhino that have died of natural causes.

Ten years ago the 15-member SADC regional block established the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources (FANR) directorate. Since then regional protocols, strategies and programmes have been developed and passed, among them the SADC Transboundary Use and Protection of Natural Resources Programme.

Under the SADC Transboundary Use and Protection of Natural Resources Programme is the Regional Transfrontier Conservation Area Programme (TFCA) and Malawi and Zambia have benefited from this arrangement so far.

Malawi’s Minister of Tourism and Wildlife Kondwani Nakhumwa tells IPS that the Nyika Transfrontier Conservation Area project has helped reduce poaching in Nyika National Park, the country’s biggest reserve.

The Malawi-Zambia TFCA includes the Nyika-North Luangwa component in Zambia situated on a high undulating montane grassland plateau rising over 2000m above the bushveld and wetlands of the Vwaza Marsh.

During summer a variety of wild flowers and orchids bloom on the highlands, making it one of Africa’s most scenic views unlike any seen in most other game parks.

“Through the project, Vwaza has managed to confiscate 10 guns, removed 322 wire snares and arrested 32 poachers,” Nakhumwa tells IPS.

Humphrey Nzima, the international coordinator for the Malawi-Zambia TFCA, says that since the project was launched there has been a general increase in animal populations.

“Significant increases were noted for elephant, hippo, buffalo, roan antelope, hartebeest, zebra, warthog and reedbuck,” says Nzima citing surveys conducted in the Vwaza Marsh and Nyika national park.

The escalating poaching crisis and conflicts on the ground occurring in many national parks across Africa will be one of the topics of discussion at this year’s International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Parks Congress 2014, which is currently taking place in Sydney, Australia.

“In Sydney, we will tackle these issues in the search of better and fairer ways to conserve the exceptional natural and cultural richness of these places,” says Ali Bongo Ondimba, president of Gabon and patron of the IUCN World Conservation Congress.

Edited by: Nalisha Adams

A woman casts her vote on May 20, 2014 in Lilongwe Mpenu North, about 70km from Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, May 29 2014 (IPS)

When Malawi’s President Joyce Banda said that last week’s elections were fraudulent and riddled with rampant irregularities, social media went viral calling her a loser. 

“She is a cry baby,” said one Malawian on Facebook who identified himself as Wellington Phiri. “She should just concede defeat,” said another."I am ready to leave whichever way this goes. But I am happy that the people of Malawi know that I wasn't lying when I called this election fraudulent." -- President Joyce Banda

Banda had nullified the elections and ordered that voting be repeated within 90 days, triggering public anger and resentment. But a legal challenge from the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) prevented the nullification of the results as she had no lawful basis to annul the election.

But now it appears that Banda has rallied support for a recount even from her worst critics, which include the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and various other opposition.

“MCP cannot accept these results because they are fraudulent,” MCP vice president Richard Msowoya told IPS. Malawi went to the polls on May 20 in its first tripartite elections. Banda contested the presidential seat against 11 other candidates. The MCP’s head, retired evangelical pastor Lazarus Chakwera, was one of Banda’s main challengers for the presidential seat.

“We cannot allow people to steal our vote just like that and we have evidence and agree with President Banda that the election has been rigged,” Msowoya added.

The High Court in Blantyre is expected to make a ruling on Friday, May 30, to either order the MEC to declare the winner based on the current votes or initiate a recount as demanded by Banda and some opposition parties.

Malawi’s President Joyce Banda said that she is ready to leave the stage if the country’s High Court rules that the electoral commission should announce the winner of the tripartite elections and not initiate a recount. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

In a quick interview with IPS, Banda said that she was ready to leave office if the court ruled that the MEC should rather announce the winner of the election and not initiate a recount.

“I am ready to leave, whichever way this goes. But I am happy that the people of Malawi know that I wasn’t lying when I called this election fraudulent,” she told IPS.

On Sunday, May 25, the MEC admitted it had received overwhelming complaints about the election and could not proceed with announcing the winner.

Last week’s poll had been plagued by problems from the outset, with voting materials turning up hours late and ballot papers being sent to the wrong parts of the country. Organisers had to extend voting in some urban areas for a second day and initial counting was delayed by power outages and a lack of generators at polling stations.

Voters went on the rampage in the capital Lilongwe and in the commercial city of Blantyre burning tyres and shops before the military moved in and intervened.

To date the MEC has only released 30 percent of the official vote count, which showed that the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), lead by Peter Mutharika, brother of the late President Bingu wa Mutharika, was in the lead with 42 percent of the vote. Banda followed with 23 percent.

But Msowoya pointed out that across the country there were cases of having more votes than voters. He said that in the constituency of Machinga, in southern Malawi, 184,223 people voted — this was 33,778 more than the total number of people on the voters’ roll for the area.

“In another constituency jn Dowa West were 70,845 people registered the final tally sheet shows only 1,164 voted which is very strange,” Msowoya said.

Banda’s ruling People’s Party (PP) also stated that several polling centres across the country recorded more people voting than the number of registered voters for those areas.

United Democratic Front presidential candidate Atupele Muluzi told IPS that his party had also received complaints from several centres. “In one instance, a presiding officer for a polling centre ended up signing for the results of two other centres, which is illegal,” Muluzi said.

The push for a recount of the vote has also now gained traction with several leading civil society groups.

The Malawi Council of Churches, an influential grouping of protestant churches, joined the chorus to push the elections body for a recount. The Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, a leading rights NGO here, and the Association of Media Owners have also called for a recount.

“President Banda has been vindicated because she took a bold and brave move to challenge the MEC and ask for investigations into the electoral process. No one wanted to listen but now its clear that she was right,” Shyley Kondowe, one of Banda’s most trusted aides, told IPS.

However, if the MEC institutes a recount of the vote, it faces a legal challenge from the DPP.

“There is an invisible hand controlling everything because we are surprised that three political parties have formed a post-electoral alliance to fight our presidential candidate because he is in the lead,” the DPP’s lawyer Kalekeni Kaphale told IPS.

He said that the MEC and the courts had no power to extend the eight-day period outlined in the constitution for the electoral body to announce the results. The constitution, he said, can only be amended by parliament.

Whatever the outcome, Onandi Banda, a political commentator and human rights activist, believes that this is a major test for Malawi’s democracy.

“The president was after all right that the election was rigged. But how we move forward from here is what will make or break Malawi,” he told IPS.

Malawi’s President Joyce Banda has vowed to get to the bottom of a corruption scandal where more than 100 million dollars were suspected to have been looted from the government since 2006. She is currently campaigning ahead of the country’s May tripartite elections. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
Apr 14 2014 (IPS)

Malawi’s President Joyce Banda is campaigning ahead of next month’s elections to extend her term of office. But many believe that the massive public service corruption scandal here has weakened her chances of winning.

This southern African nation goes to the polls on May 20. However, after a February auditor’s report into the scandal revealed that 30 million dollars were stolen over just six months in 2013, Africa’s second female president has faced calls to resign. She become president in April 2012 after her predecessor President Bingu wa Mutharika died in office."We have repealed repressive laws, we have changed the status of women, the media is free, and we allowed everyone to demonstrate freely when just two years ago people were being killed for doing just that." -- Malawi's President Joyce Banda

But Banda is confident that she has done more than enough to address the corruption  — where a total of more than 100 million dollars were suspected to have been looted from the government since 2006 — and ensure her chances of retaining office.

She has taken on the powerful players involved in the corruption scandal and arrested 68 people, including a former cabinet minister, businessmen and senior public officers. “Cashgate” was first exposed last September after a failed assassination attempt on a government budget director who was believed to be on the verge of revealing the theft.

Banda has frozen over 30 bank accounts and 18 cases are currently in court. In this interview, Africa’s most influential woman discusses with IPS correspondent Mabvuto Banda her two years in power, the challenges, and what her hopes are for the future. Excerpts follow:

Q: President Banda, it’s been a tough two years of fighting to right a sputtering economy left by your predecessor, the late President Mutharika. How have you fared?

A: We inherited an economy that was in a crisis. Today, we have turned around the economy because we took decisive action to heal the country, recover the economy, and build a strong foundation for growth. It’s been two years since our people spent hours in fuel queues, it’s been two years since businesses struggled to access foreign exchange.

Q: How did you manage to do that?

A: We agreed to swallow the bitter pill and made unpopular decisions like the devaluation of the Kwacha, we have been implementing a tight monetary policy…our fiscal policy has been tight. These are some of the pills that have set the economy on a path of healing and represent the foundation of a transformational agenda that we will implement in the next five years.

Q: You rightly said that your first job was to bring back donor confidence and unlock aid which was withdrawn. You did that but now because of the “Cashgate” scandal, donors have suspended 150 million dollars in budget support. Do you take responsibility for this?

A: Yes, I do because “Cashgate” happened on my watch and my job entails that I take responsibility and deal with it. This is why we have taken far-reaching measures in dealing with fraud and corruption and engaged foreign forensic auditors to get to the bottom of this corruption in the public service.

Q: Your critics think your administration is not doing much to get to the bottom of all this. Any comment?

A: Sixty-eight people, including a former member of my cabinet, have been arrested, more than 18 cases are already in court, 33 bank accounts have been frozen. This is the risk I have taken which very few African leaders do when they are facing an election.

I have vowed not to shield anyone, even if it means one of my relations is involved. Now tell me, is this not proof enough that we are taking this corruption very seriously?

Q: But many believe that you personally benefited from this “Cashgate” scandal. What do you say?

A: When you are fighting the powerful, an influential syndicate like this one, this is not surprising. Secondly, this is an election year and you will hear a lot of things but the truth shall come out.

The other thing you should know is that I am a woman in a role dominated by men and I am therefore not surprised that I am getting such amount of pushback…we shall overcome this, and those responsible for stealing state funds will be jailed and their properties confiscated.

Q: You face an election next month and the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit has projected that you will win the election despite the scandal. Do you believe that?

A: Yes I do believe that I will win this election. I also know though that it’s a close one but the advantage is that people have seen what we have done in two years.

We have repealed repressive laws, we have changed the status of women, the media is free, and we allowed everyone to demonstrate freely when just two years ago people were being killed for doing just that.

Q: Forbes Magazine named you as the continent’s most powerful woman. Do you feel that powerful?

A:  No, I don’t. I will feel that powerful when every woman in Malawi and Africa is free from hate and is empowered.

I will feel powerful when woman no longer have to lose their lives because they are abused, when they stop dying from avoidable pregnancy-related deaths. I will feel powerful when women in Africa take their rightful place as equals.

Excerpt:

Some of the thousands of mourners who waited patiently to view former South African President Nelson Mandela’s body while it lay in state at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Courtesy: Mercedes Sayagues

By Mabvuto Banda
QUNU, South Africa, Dec 15 2013 (IPS)

As South Africa’s first black president, Nelson Mandela, was laid to rest at his childhood home of Qunu in the Eastern Cape, Malawi’s President Joyce Banda told mourners that it was Mandela who taught her how to forgive those who tried to keep her from becoming southern Africa’s first female head of state.

Speaking at the funeral on Sunday, Dec. 15, Banda said she had been deeply moved by Mandela’s life before she had even met him. She told mourners that she had a moving conversation with the world’s most prominent statesman just months before she was to become president of Malawi in 2011."I learned that leadership is about failing in love with the people that you serve and the people falling in love with you." -- Malawian President Joyce Banda

“I was deeply touched by his spirit of forgiveness, his passion to put people first, and his courage. These attributes have greatly influenced my life,” Banda told mourners who included U.S. talk show host Oprah Winfrey, entrepreneur Richard Branson, the United Kingdom’s Prince Charles, and American civil rights campaigner Reverend Jesse Jackson. Mandela died on Dec. 5, after a long illness. He was 95 years old.

“At that moment I did not know that I was to become president of the Republic of Malawi a few months down the line. At that moment [before] I had become president of Malawi I had been isolated, humiliated, called names and escaped an assassination attempt on my life. I found myself in a situation where I had to work with those same people who prevented me from becoming president of my country,” Banda said.

When Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika died in April 2011, Banda, who had been named Mutharika’s running mate in 2009, had been expelled from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and was isolated politically.

At the time of Mutharika’s death she remained the country’s vice-president and his successor. However, some within Mutharika’s inner circle had attempted to delay announcing news of his passing to ensure that his brother, Peter, could take over the presidency. They failed.

“I had to forgive, but I had to forgive without any effort because my Madiba [Mandela’s clan name] had prepared me,” said Banda to wild applause from the audience.

Malawi’s President Joyce Banda says she learned how to forgive and what it means to be a leader from late South African President Nelson Mandela. Credit: Katie C. Lin/IPS

Malawi’s director of information, Chikumbutso Mtumondzi, told IPS after the speech that Banda’s humility made her a champion of Malawi’s vulnerable.

“She has learnt a lot from watching and reading about Mandela’s leadership style and this is being seen in how she is working with her adversaries and helping the poor,” he said in a telephone interview.

“She demonstrated forgiveness by re-appointing the same ministers who plotted to stop her from ascending to power constitutionally following the death of President Mutharika. She is building houses for the poor and looks after so many disadvantaged children,” he said.

Banda took a personal pay cut of 30 percent and put her predecessor’s private jet up for sale after she came to power. She moved to restore donor confidence in Malawi by implementing an austerity budget, promising poverty reduction and justice for the disadvantaged.

But Banda, voted by Forbes magazine as Africa’s most influential woman, said she learned from Mandela’s example.

“I learned that leadership is about failing in love with the people that you serve and the people falling in love with you…we will remember Tata as a great reformer who championed democracy and dedicated his life to selfless service,” she said.

Banda, who is also chairperson of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), said that the region “will strive to emulate President Mandela’s stature and spirit so that his legacy can live on.”

“In the SADC region we remember Tata [Mandela] as a great reformer who championed the cause of humanity, deepened democracy and dedicated his life to selfless service. A man who worked tirelessly to promote national, regional and world peace…. The ideals of political, social and economic emancipation that [he] stood for will inspire us forever as a region,” she promised.

African Union chair, Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, pledged to continue with the ideals that Mandela believed in.

“Humanity is better off because it had the good fortune of having Mandela…the champion of peace and justice and we pledge to continue with those ideals,” he said.

Mandela’s flag-draped casket left Pretoria on Saturday, Dec. 14, after lying in state for three days. It was accompanied by a military guard of honour and was flown to Qunu after a solemn ceremony at the Waterkloof Airforce Base, organised by the ruling African National Congress.

Mandela, hailed for leading South Africa out of decades of apartheid, became the first icon from a line of famous South African anti-apartheid heroes like Chris Hani, Govan Mbeki, and Steve Biko, all of whom were from the Eastern Cape, to be buried in his ancestral home.

Thousands of invited guests arrived at the rural village for Mandela’s burial. A dome-shaped marque, constructed for the ceremony, transformed the little village, which from now on will be known globally as Mandela’s final resting place.

Military jets and helicopters hovered in the skies and access to the compound, perched on a hilltop overlooking the traditional village homes, was restricted to family members, a few relatives and invited guests.

“He was the best thing that ever happened to South Africa,” said Gideon Nasilele, who was among the thousands who travelled to Qunu to pay their last respects to Mandela.

“He was a man of incomparable vision and a hero for so many of us…his death leaves a huge power vacuum in South Africa,” Nasilele told IPS.

Agnes Katete lights a fire in a make-shift camp. Behind her are the tents that she and those affected by the March flood in Malawi’s Kilipula Village now live in. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Dec 12 2013 (IPS)

Delays in finalising Malawi’s climate change policy, which has been in the making for the last three years, are affecting millions of families living in disaster-prone areas across this southern African nation, says the country’s minister of environment and climate change management Halima Daudi.

Daudi, who led the Malawian delegation to COP19 in Warsaw last month, tells IPS that the delay in drafting and making the policy operational comes at a cost to many of Malawi’s vulnerable.

“For example there is the GCF [Green Climate Finance] which needs us to come up with a governing instrument by establishing an authority designated to be the focal point to handle the funds and we cannot access that without a national policy on climate change,” she says.

For the last three years, the Malawian government, with the help of United Nations agencies, has been working on the National Climate Change Policy, a National Climate Change Investment Plan and a National Adaptation Plan to address medium- to long-term adaptation needs for Malawi.

William Chadza, executive director for the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a local civil society grouping, explains that “as a country we cannot access financing for adaptation without a well-articulated national climate policy and a national adaptation plan which needs to establish a body to specifically handle climate funds.”

Daudi agrees. “It’s very difficult for us to access such funds for adaptation and mitigation, which in the end increases the vulnerability of so many families to [the impact of] climate change,” she says.

But she explained the delays were “due to [a lack of] funding for holding consultative meetings, and mainly because we don’t want to rush this. It’s a very important policy that will define our resolve against climate change. We are taking time on it.”

But Dora Marema, coordinator for GenderCC, a network of women and gender activists working for gender and climate justice, says that the delays in implementing the national climate policies in several African countries, including Malawi, is affecting hundreds of thousands of people reeling from the effects of climate change.

“It’s true that most countries are failing to access funds for adaptation because their policies are not in place and the impact is on the most vulnerable, especially women trying to recover from disasters associated with climate change,” Marema tells IPS.

And the longer it takes to implement Malawi’s climate change policy, the longer it will be before Agnes Katete and her family get back on their feet.

In March, a mountain of water came gushing through the only door in Katete’s dingy shack in the wee hours of the morning. The water swept away her house and 10 others in Kilipula Village in the lakeshore district of Karonga, which lies 600 km from the capital Lilongwe.

Katete, a mother of four, was lucky. She managed to escape unhurt with her children.

But like many others in her village, she lost her rice fields. And now, nine months after they lost everything; they are still unable to pull through.

Katete and many others from her village are still living in make shift homes set up by government and U.N. agencies, surviving on food handouts.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me and my children because another rainy season has started and I still don’t have a house. I lost all my income and I have no food,” she tells IPS.

Over the last five years, persistent droughts, flash floods and erratic rainfall show how vulnerable the country has become. This year alone, according to the department for disaster affairs, floods have affected close to 12,877 households and wiped out entire crop fields mainly in the northern and southern parts of the country.

In March 2012, flooding caused by two weeks of torrential rains destroyed thousands of homes in eight districts, leaving an estimated 300,000 people destitute, eight people dead and several missing.

The largest impact of climate change could be on Malawi’s agriculture sector, which is heavily dependent on rain-fed cultivation. The country has three million hectares of arable land.

Evans Njewa, an environmental policy and planning officer, tells IPS that one of the adaptation methods that Malawi plans to promote and create awareness on is traditional soil conservation. He explains that conservation agriculture, which involves reduced tillage, permanent soil cover and crop rotation, can help adapt to climate change effects because it potentially increases productivity through better soils and helps farmers adapt to climate change through better water retention.

“Like many other African countries, we are looking at adaptation as a priority in the National Climate Policy,” Njewa says, because as “a less industrialised country” it is easier “to [be able to] concentrate on mitigation.”

This is one of the many farming families from Rumphi, Malawi that complained about the late arrival of subsidy fertilisers. Courtesy: Mabvuto Banda

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Nov 20 2013 (IPS)

Gogo Munthali, from Rumphi, a village over 400 km north of Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, dissolves into tears every morning as she worries about what to feed her five orphaned grandchildren, the youngest of whom has full blown AIDS.

“Samson may not be with me for long; he is on treatment and I can’t give him the food he needs,” she tells IPS of her HIV-positive grandchild who is four years old.

Munthali was among the first beneficiaries of Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) when it was introduced some eight years ago by late President Bingu wa Mutharika.

About 1.6 million poor farmers were targeted and provided with two 50-kilogramme bags of inorganic fertilisers, hybrid and open pollinating maize seed at 50 percent less the standard price. The local village headman identified beneficiary families, and priority was given to households headed by children and women.

Nationwide, the results were phenomenal. Maize output more than doubled in the first two years from an average of 1.06 tonnes per hectare from 2000 to 2005, to 2.27 tonnes per hectare from 2009 to 2010. This pushed GDP growth to an average 7.4 percent, higher than the World Bank recommended rate of six percent for sub-Saharan Africa.

Inflation slid into single digits and food security at household level also improved.

But today, the 65-year-old widow is desperately poor. She is unable to produce the crop yields she previously did.

“Fertiliser, for the last four years, has been arriving late after the first rains … I have had to plant my crop three weeks late and this has reduced my harvest drastically,” she says.

Rumphi, in Northern Region, is one of the country’s biggest producers of maize and tobacco. But this year, it is one of the 21 districts out of 28 nationwide that are affected by hunger. According to the government, 14.3 percent of the population of about 16 million will need food aid. Delayed arrival of subsidy fertilisers, poor access to financial services and markets, and unfavourable weather has compromised yields in Rumphi.

Mary Juma’s story is no different. “We got so used to waiting for cheap fertilisers every year but now things have changed. [One day] we are beneficiaries, the next day we are not,” she says from Dedza district hospital in Malawi’s Central Region. When the FISP fertiliser was delivered to her area, it was well below the required amount and many families who qualified for the subsidy did not receive any.

Her husband decided to borrow money from a revolving fund to purchase fertilisers at the full price. But a prolonged dry spell destroyed their crop, leaving them 400 dollars in debt. Tensions between Juma and her husband worsened when she gave birth to their third daughter and she says she left her abusive husband shortly thereafter.

The untold stories of Munthali and Juma offer a glimpse into how FISP has failed to change the status of most poor farmers in this southern African nation, 70 percent of whom are women.

This is a failure that very few here want to talk about because FISP has always been reported as having a positive impact.

“The story of FISP since it was launched has always been about how it has helped reduce poverty … no one has bothered to find out what has really happened to the poor farmers being targeted. Are they well-off or life has become unbearable for them?” says Chris Chisoni, national secretary for Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, which conducted a study in 19 districts to find out the impact that corruption in the FISP had on poor farmers last year.

“We discovered that those entrusted with the responsibility of selling the inputs are asking the poor farmers to pay more than the K500 (two dollars), which is the recommended subsidy price, forcing many who cannot afford to do without,” Chisoni tells IPS

Wide scale corruption within FISP has played a huge part in the failure to change the lives of many farmers.

An investigation into the programme by Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB), conducted in 2007, which has not been publicly released but was seen by IPS, shows that the FISP nearly collapsed in 2005 after a preferred supplier from Saudi Arabia failed to deliver 70,000 mega tonnes of fertilisers on time.

ACB found former Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe abused his office when he disregarded advice not to award the contract to supply fertilisers to a Saudi Arabian firm.

Gondwe, according to ACB findings, went ahead and awarded the contract to the company, which only managed to supply half of contracted fertiliser and which resulted in a loss of 6.8 million dollars for the country.

Gondwe, a former International Monetary Fund vice president for Africa, denies the allegations of wrongdoing.

“The recommendation was that I abused my office but [the ACB] never proved if I had received any kickbacks as claimed. I dared them to take me to court if they had anything that could hold in the courts but they failed and therefore I was cleared,” he tells IPS.

“President Mutharika dropped me from cabinet to allow for the investigations to take place and he was not convinced with what they [the ACB] found and he reappointed me to his cabinet.”

However, since no one was punished from the alleged misconduct, delays in the delivery of fertilisers have now become the norm.

The report shows that the initial late delivery of fertilisers set the trend for how this southern African nation was to procure fertilisers over the next eight years.

Overall, during the course of the FISP, many targeted farmers began receiving their fertilisers much later in the season, resulting in low yields.

In many cases contracts are awarded to companies with links to the ruling elite and have no capacity fulfil their contracts.

Early this year, current President Joyce Banda, promised to act and she did. The Ministry of Agriculture disqualified suppliers, both local and international, who were delivering the inputs late. This year, many companies have been disqualified and removed as prequalified bidders to supply fertilisers because they failed to pass the due diligence and other new stringent measures recently put in place.

Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture Jeffrey Luhanga blames the former government for fuelling corruption that in the end affected the poor farmers.

“This is a good programme with good intentions but failure to rid corruption has ended up in some bad results for the programme and punished farmers and made others rich,” he tells IPS.

Malawi’s President Joyce Banda says women must be empowered and have to be actively involved in all decisions related to their health and well being. Credit: Katie C. Lin/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Aug 3 2013 (IPS)

Malawi’s President Joyce Banda knows a thing or two about women’s empowerment. After all she is the first female southern African head of state.

But she has not had it easy. Banda had a tough job fixing a sputtering economy after taking over from her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika who died in office on Apr. 5, 2012. In 2011 the country witnessed nationwide protests against Mutharika and the failing economy. The United Kingdom, Malawi’s largest donor, had suspended 550 million dollars in aid after Mutharika expelled its ambassador for calling him an autocrat.

But she did succeed. Since taking office she has implemented of a number of austerity measures, which included selling the country’s presidential jet for 15 million dollars and taking a 30 percent cut in her salary. She also embarked on a range of reforms that not everyone has agreed with. The most controversial has been cultivating closer ties with international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, which is known for its heavy-handed austerity plans.

But in June, the World Bank said the country’s economy was recovering, with manufacturing expected to grow six percent and agriculture 5.7 percent.

In September 2012, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute reported that since Mutharika’s increasingly autocratic rule ended, respect for democracy and human rights has returned to the country under Banda’s presidency.

In an exclusive interview with IPS, Banda said that women’s empowerment remained high on her agenda.

“The message I am trying to send is ‘Nothing for us without us’ – nothing for women without their involvement and inclusion. We need to make deliberate efforts and policies that will aim at eliminating the structural barriers posed by poverty and gender inequality in economic empowerment of women because such efforts will have long-lasting improvements on the welfare of a woman,” Banda told IPS.

In June, Banda appointed Anastasia Msosa the country’s first female chief justice. Msosa is just one of a number of women who have been appointed to high-level positions by Banda. In March, she appointed Hawa Ndilowe the first ever female head of the public service. Banda noted that even after women’s active participation in the fight for independence in the 1960s and their involvement in liberation movements in Africa, “women did not get prominent decision-making positions to correspond to their inputs in the struggles.”

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: Many scholars and activists say that there is a direct link between gender equality, good governance and women’s empowerment and sustainable development. Do you agree with that?

A: Gender equality unlocks the potential of women and men to allow space for each other. And women’s empowerment proactively enhances the capacity of women to participate in decision making and in matters that affect them.

Q: Since you came to power in April 2012, you have appointed a number of women in very influential positions like chief justice and head of the public service. You have also appointed more women to your cabinet. What is your agenda?

A: It is important that women’s needs, aspirations and realities become central drivers of policies and programmes to increase maternal health care access and utilisation. Women must be empowered and have to be actively involved in all decisions related to their health and well being. As I have said many times before in different forums, we cannot talk about empowering a particular group without involving the group itself. No decisions should be made about women without women’s involvement.

Q: Before you joined politics, you formed the National Association for Business Women, an organisation that lends start-up cash to small-scale business women. You also successfully set up a school to help educate girls. Why are you so passionate about this?

A: Women constitute the majority of our population in Africa. Therefore, when we talk about poverty, suffering and underdevelopment, we are talking mostly of women. That’s why I believe that the promotion of gender equality, women’s empowerment, improvement of maternal health and achieving education for the girl child is a transformational strategy to achieving development.

Q: Women’s subordinate position in most African societies restricts the ability for them to take control of their lives to combat HIV/AIDS, leave a high-risk relationship or have adequate access to quality health care and education. What is your take on this?

A: In Malawi women and girls between the ages of 15 and 30 experience very high rates of HIV/AIDS infection. The infection rate of women/girls is six times higher than that of men/boys in the same group and the reason is because of the low socio-economic status of women in addition to various cultural practices that prevent women from negotiating safer sex.

Q: So what needs to be done to change this?

A: We need laws that protect women and my government has managed to push through the Gender Equality Bill and it has been passed by parliament. We also need deliberate policies to push capable women into decision-making positions in every sector so they lead and help empower fellow women.

Q: Finally, what are your last thoughts on empowering women?

A: In most African countries, women have over time faced a variety of legal, economic and social challenges. These disadvantages placed women and girls at the margins of society. In most homes, girls lack opportunity to access education. It is typical that in most African families when resources are low they prioritise boys’ education over girls’.

Sex-stereotyping on the part of parents, educators, religion, the media and society at large encouraged the practice that certain jobs are exclusively for men, and as a result the majority of women remained in the ‘feminised’ jobs. In some African societies, customary laws regarded adult women as minors and these women in most instances did not enjoy property and inheritance rights.

This increased their dependence on men. Treatment of women as minors manifested in formal provisions barring women from opening their own bank accounts and apply for credit in their own right, for instance. Women have not enjoyed access to factors of production like their male counterparts.

However, I am pleased that African women have not just sat back, and accepted being pushed into the margins of society. African women have risen up to claim their rightful place in society and are driving the agenda for their empowerment.

Excerpt:

In Malawi, 16 women die every day of pregnancy-related complications. But Charity Salima says that she is yet to record a single pregnancy-related death at her clinic in Area 23, a township on the outskirts of Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. Courtesy: Mabvuto Banda

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Jul 3 2013 (IPS)

Charity Salima, 54, has helped to deliver over 4,000 babies in her maternity clinic in Area 23 – one of Malawi’s poorest and most populous townships – and has yet to record a single pregnancy-related death.

In Malawi, the lifetime risk of a woman dying in pregnancy or childbirth is one in 36, compared to one in 4,600 in the United Kingdom, according to the Malawi Safe Motherhood Programme, an initiative to reduce maternal mortality in this southern African nation.

“I used to witness pregnant women scramble for public transport or hitchhike for a lift just to reach a hospital. In most cases, some would die or lose their babies or develop post-delivery complications that could have been avoided if they had transport and got timely medical help,” Salima tells IPS.  

Salima used to work as a research nurse. But in 2008 she quit her job to set up her clinic, Achikondi Women Community Friendly Services, in a rented house near Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. And thanks to the help of the National Organisation of Nurses, a solidarity fund for retired nurses and midwives, which donated an ambulance to her clinic, she has been saving lives ever since.

“In Malawi, just like many African communities, when a woman is pregnant, everyone is anxious and filled with fear because they have seen so many women die while giving birth. And yet in developed countries, when a woman is pregnant, she and her family celebrate and are truly expectant,” says Salima.

The Ministry of Health puts it simply: 16 women die every day in Malawi from preventable pregnancy-related complications. The country is behind on delivering two of the key United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – reducing maternal deaths by 75 percent by 2015, and ensuring universal access to reproductive healthcare. Eight MDGs were adopted by all U.N. member states in 2000, and aim to curb poverty, disease and gender inequality by 2015.

But Salima’s clinic and her maternal health success rate here may prove a model for Malawi as the country grapples with saving the lives of its pregnant mothers.

Martin Msukwa, executive director for the MaiKhanda Trust, an NGO focusing on reducing maternal mortality here, tells IPS: “Salima has managed to make a difference in her community because she has done two things; introduced an efficient system to deal with normal deliveries at her clinic and managed to have another efficient system of referring complicated cases to hospital on time.”

Her methods to combat maternal mortality are simple and low cost. She encourages women to grow vegetable gardens to increase the diversity in their diet, and she registers every pregnant woman in the community so that she can monitor their pregnancy.

Her strategies, she says, have helped her identify high-risk pregnant women within the community, who in turn are referred to the main hospital in Lilongwe for treatment.

“The other thing we have been doing is to change cultural beliefs in our community that play a major role in maternal deaths, like the belief that if a woman has obstructed labour, it’s a sign of infidelity,” she says.

Salima offers a complete range of other services at the clinic, including outpatient services for children under five. Her clinic, however, is not for free. Patients pay a fee of about three dollars to help cover the cost of medicines from the government’s central medical stores.

National coordinator for the Malawi Safe Motherhood Programme, Dorothy Ngoma, says that although recent trends show a decline in maternal mortality – from 675 deaths per 100,000 live births from 2006 to 2010, to 460 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2012 – Malawi still has a lot of work to do to meet the MDG on reducing maternal mortality.

The Malawi Safe Motherhood Programme is trying to replicate some of the practices in Salima’s clinic.

“From an advocacy point of view, we have taken on board initiatives such as Salima’s in our programmes and we are mobilising resources to build waiting homes for pregnant women who live far from health facilities,” says Ngoma.

In addition, the programme has recruited 200 young women from 20 districts across the country for an 18-month midwife-training programme. Upon graduation, the midwives will work for their respective communities for five years.

“The aim is to ensure that mothers do not travel long distances to seek maternal healthcare services, thereby averting possible pregnancy complications,” Ngoma says.

But as word of Salima’s success spreads, it brings with it challenges too.

“I have more and more people coming to my clinic but I don’t have enough volunteers with the needed skills to meet the demand,” Salima says.

Nguwo village committee chairperson Ibrahim Kachinga on the shores of Lake Malawi. And for the past five years the village committee has been going to local gatherings to educate residents about the need to protect the lake. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, May 20 2013 (IPS)

Lloyd Phiri, a fisherman from Senga Bay on Lake Malawi’s shores in Malawi’s central region, knows that the lake’s water levels are dropping. He can see it in his catch, which has shrunk by more than 80 percent in recent years.

Years ago, it was the norm to catch about 5,000 fish a day, Phiri says. But now, if he is lucky, he brings in one-fifth of that. And if he is not, he catches a mere 300 fish a day.

“My fish catch has gone down in recent years and this has affected my earnings. I now have problems paying school fees for my children,” Phiri tells IPS.

The rapid drop in Lake Malawi’s water levels, driven by population growth, climate change and deforestation, is threatening its floral and fauna species with extinction, says Malawi’s Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Management. And included among the wildlife threatened are the fish that Phiri depends on for a livelihood.“The fish stocks have declined in the last two decades from about 30,000 metric tonnes per year to 2,000 per year because of a drop in water levels.” -- Environmentalist Raphael Mweneguwe

“Over the last three decades some water balance models have been done on the lake and have shown that the water levels have dropped from 477 metres above sea level in the 1980s to around 474.88 metres currently,” Yanira Mtupanyama, principal secretary in the ministry, tells IPS of the 29,600-square-kilometre lake that straddles the borders of Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

“It’s a big deal because studies are showing that the water levels in the lake will keep on dropping in coming years because there are signs that show (that there will be) less rainfall and increased evaporation,” she says.

An estimated 1,000 different fish species rely on the fresh waters of Africa’s third-largest lake for their survival, which also provides 60 percent of this southern African nation’s protein requirement.

The mbuna cichlids species and the famous tilapia fish, locally known as chambo, are facing extinction. Chambo is Malawi’s most popular fish.

The country’s Department of Fisheries says that fish stocks in the lake have dwindled by 90 percent over the last 20 years. It is a huge concern as, according to authorities, about 1.5 million Malawians depend on the lake for food, transportation and other daily needs.

And of even greater concern are the recent Malawian government reports that say the water mass may hold rich oil and gas reserves. Environmentalist Raphael Mweneguwe fears that if oil and gas mining starts on the lake, it can lead to further biodiversity losses.

“The fish stocks have declined in the last two decades from about 30,000 metric tonnes per year to 2,000 per year because of a drop in water levels, overfishing and rapid population growth. But this may get worse if oil is discovered on the lake,” Mwenenguwe tells IPS.

Williman Chadza, executive director of the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a local NGO that promotes activism on environmental issues, shares Mwenenguwe’s fears.

“Oil is a resource of paramount importance to a country like Malawi, which is seeking revenue alternatives for its socio-economic development. But its discovery may deepen the country’s biodiversity loss and impact badly on water sources,” Chadza tells IPS.

Mining also poses a threat to the lake. A uranium mine in Karonga, a town situated near Lake Malawi in the north of the country, is one example. The mine, owned and operated by Australian mining giant Paladin (Africa) for the past four years, is regarded as a pollution threat.

“Uranium is a highly radioactive material and therefore there are still threats of polluting the freshwater in Lake Malawi,” Udule Mwakasungura, a human rights activist, tells IPS.

The need to arrest the loss of biodiversity is particularly important in Malawi where people depend on biological resources to a greater extent than other parts of the world.

The 18,000 families of Nguwo fishing village in Senga Bay are an example of this dependency.

“We know that the fish stock has depleted because of unsustainable fishing practices and non-compliance with fishing regulations … we also know that cutting trees unsustainably is ultimately affecting the quality of the water we drink,” says village headman Radson Mdalamkwanda.

Mdalamkwanda tells IPS that fishermen in the village have been working together with local authorities in the district to address the threats and challenges facing the conservation of Lake Malawi. He says that anyone not following the rules or by-laws is banned from fishing on the lake during October and November, when the fish spawn.

And for the past five years the village development committee has been going to local gatherings to educate residents about the by-laws and about the need to protect the lake.

“Apart from protecting the fish, we also want to safeguard the water so that it’s safe for drinking. We do that by creating awareness at gatherings like weddings and funerals,” the chair of the village committee, Ibrahim Kachinga, tells IPS.

Their efforts also complement the Malawi government’s attempts to address the threats challenges to conserving the flora and fauna of the lake.

“There has been a ban for the last few years on the use of high-yield fishing gear in lake Malawi between October and November when the fish are spawning,” Mtupanyama says.

Mtupanyama also says that in 2003 the government launched a 10-year strategic plan, which largely seeks to restore the lake’s fish stocks.

“So for the last 10 years we have been restocking the lake with fish by breeding juveniles outside the lake and then reintroducing them into the lake. We haven’t done badly,” she says.

Mtupanyama could not, however, say if this had significantly increased the lake’s fish stock.

Regardless of what may come of this restocking project, the Nguwo village committee understands that the future of the lake is important. So they are educating those who can do something about it – the village’s future generations.

Kachinga says: “With the help of government, we are also encouraging teachers in nursery and primary schools to teach our children about how to protect the lake.”

Queues at Malawi’s state-run maize traders are never-ending as thousands of people wait for days to purchase the staple crop. At the Lilongwe Admarc people sleep overnight in the queue as they wait for a chance to buy maize. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Apr 26 2013 (IPS)

Each night Esnart Phiri, a widow with five children, sleeps outside the gates of the state-run maize trader or Admarc market, in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, as she waits for days on end to buy maize.

Queues at Admarcs are never-ending as thousands of people wait for days to purchase the staple crop. Phiri told IPS that she puts her eldest child in the queue at night, in order to keep her place for the next day, while she sleeps with her other children in one of the office corridors across the streets.

“The market has become my temporary home with my children because I have no energy to walk back and forth every day. I would rather sleep here and wait for the maize,” she said. Phiri is from Chinsapo Township, some 40 km from Lilongwe.

This southern African nation has been hit by a maize shortage after two consecutive dry spells. Maize is Malawi’s most important food crop, accounting for 90 percent of all caloric intake, followed by cassava, sweet potatoes and sorghum. But, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Malawi’s cereal production for 2011/2012 was seven percent below the previous season’s harvest.

Over two million people are facing food shortages this year due to the prolonged dry spells and soaring food prices that have pushed consumer inflation to 36.6 percent as of March.

Phiri may not be willing to walk from Chinsapo every day, but each morning before the sun rises, a four-month pregnant Memory Jamesi wakes up and walks 40 km to the Admarc in Lilongwe.

A few weeks ago the mother of three was so weak that she fainted while standing in the long Admarc queue.

“I felt very weak and tired…I started shaking violently as I stood on the queue and I don’t know what happened after that,” Jamesi told IPS as she lay in her hospital bed in the over-crowded female ward at Kamuzu Central Hospital.

But Jamesi’s plight is hardly unique. About five in 10 residents in Chinsapo told IPS their children have gone hungry over the last few months, not only because of the maize shortage, but because they cannot even afford to buy it when it is available.

A 50-kg bag of maize used to cost around 13 dollars, but now the price has more than doubled to about 30 dollars – way above the earnings of those living in dire poverty, on less than 20 dollars a month.

In a country where women make up 70 percent of the farming workforce and are the breadwinners in their families, women and children are bearing the brunt of the high food prices.

The food situation has also worsened in the last two months, since about 30,000 metric tonnes of maize in the strategic grain reserves went bad.

This, according to principal secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, Jeffrey Luhanga, was enough maize to feed almost 400,000 of the two million people in need of food aid.

“The 30,000 metric tonnes of maize that went bad was enough to feed the masses up to harvest period. But now we have had to import 50,000 metric tonnes from Zambia to help fill the gaps,” Luhanga told IPS.

This was the first time in six years that Malawi has had to import maize from neighbouring Zambia.

From 2006 to 2011, Malawi reaped bumper harvests of maize because of a successful fertiliser subsidy programme. Under the programme, which started in 2005, the poorest farming families are given a 40 percent reduction in the cost of fertilisers and seeds.

It worked well for Malawi. In 2003, the country adopted the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), which aims to help eliminate hunger and reduce poverty.

But the two consecutive dry spells and corruption in the distribution and supply of fertiliser for the subsidy programme have cut the bumper harvests and affected yields.

“During the last two years under the administration of (late president President Bingu wa) Mutharika, the fertiliser inputs subsidy programme was corrupted and the targeted families did not benefit because fertiliser was diverted. Secondly, two droughts, especially along the country’s maize belts, affected the harvests,” Luhanga said.

However, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Peter Mwanza told IPS that the coming harvest was expected to be a strong one thanks to good rains.

“Our first crop estimate shows that we expect to harvest 3.5 million metric tonnes, which is more than what we harvested last year,” Mwanza said.

The initial harvest being forecast is more than the national requirement of 2.8 million metric tonnes.

Leader of the former ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Peter Mutharika (c), was released on bail on Mar. 14 after being arrested with 11 other top Malawian government officials on charges of treason. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Mar 20 2013 (IPS)

Malawi’s first-ever tripartite elections in May 2014 will be a litmus test for President Joyce Banda, who is faced with an opposition majority in parliament, soaring food prices, and a potential treason trial.

The charging of 12 top Malawian government officials with treason may be a catalyst for more unrest and a recipe for disaster for Banda as soaring food prices are set to impact over 65 percent of Malawians this year.

“Those who blame Joyce Banda for the food shortages and the high (food) prices will easily join in and use the arrests to ferment their anger towards her government leading to the elections next year,” independent political commentator John Phiri told IPS.

Banda, the country’s first female president, will seek re-election next year. She took over the role after her predecessor, President Bingu wa Mutharika, collapsed and died on Apr. 5, 2012. She heads the governing People’s Party (PP).

However, on Mar. 11 she ordered the arrests of 12 government officials, including Peter Mutharika, the late president’s younger brother, and Minister of Economy and Planning Goodall Gondwe, a former vice president of the International Monetary Fund. Gondwe has since resigned from his post as minister.

The accused, who were released on bail on Mar. 14, have been charged with seven counts of treason, inciting mutiny, conspiracy to commit a felony, breach of trust, and giving false evidence to the Commission of Inquiry into President Mutharika’s death.

The Commission of Inquiry report found the accused guilty of conspiring to prevent Banda’s ascendance to the presidency. The inquiry also found that they allegedly tried to convince the Army Commander of the Malawi Defence Forces, General Henry Odillo, to take over the country. Odillo had refused as the request was against the country’s constitution, which calls for the vice president to assume power in the event of the death of a sitting president.

However, the arrests of the government officials sparked protests in Lilongwe and Blantyre, and the former ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is headed by Peter Mutharika, is already using this to pressure the government to drop the treason case.

“President Banda should focus on the suffering of many Malawians who cannot get food or medicines in hospital, and not on arresting Peter to stop him at all costs from contesting the 2014 tripartite elections,” DPP spokesman Nicolaus Dausi told IPS.

“Such actions breed violence and she will be blamed if things get worse,” Dausi said. The latest data from the Centre for Social Concern, a local research institution focusing on the cost of living in urban Malawi, showed that since Banda took over, a family of six now needs an average of 200 dollars per month to meet basic food demands. In a country where the minimum monthly wage is about 20 dollars, it has left many unhappy with Banda’s austerity policies.

Charles Mlombwa, a vendor and DPP supporter, warned of more protests if Peter Mutharika was prevented from participating in the next election.

“I support late President Bingu wa Mutharika’s party … because I know that many things are wrong and this government has failed,” Mlombwa told IPS.

The government estimates that over two million people need food aid this year. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, cereal production for 2011/2012 was seven percent below the previous season’s harvest. In addition, “significantly high maize prices in the southern region are negatively affecting access to food, especially for vulnerable people.”

In urban centres women have been sleeping outside Admarcs, government grain markets, waiting to buy cheap maize. Reports of women fainting from hunger in queues have become the story of the day here. Many here blame Banda for the maize shortage.

On Mar. 13 the Consumer Association of Malawi accused her of emptying the country’s silos of maize and distributing it to the poor for free. The association claimed that much of the maize Banda was distributing was meant for sale at the Admarc markets.

Elizabeth Gama, a mother of seven, has been travelling over 70 kilometres every day from her home on the outskirts of Lilongwe to the nearest Admarc.

“There is no maize in the Admarc markets and when I find it, I am only allowed to buy 15 kilogrammes per person, and yet the president is busy distributing maize for free across the country,” Gama told IPS.

Mphatso Katuli, a mother of four who said she had been sleeping outside an Admarc depot for the last three days waiting for maize, was also unhappy with Banda’s regime. “During President Bingu wa Mutharika’s time all of this (did not happen) because we had enough maize and Admarc markets were well stocked then,” she told IPS.

Meanwhile, Augustine Magolowondo, the Africa regional programme coordinator for the Netherlands Institute for Multi-Party Democracy, feared that the treason arrests were likely to fuel unrest in the country.

“It is apparent that these arrests have created an environment of tension in the country and the reaction of the supporters when their leaders were arrested cannot simply be wished away…under such circumstances, conflicts are bound to arise,” he told IPS.

Ophamally Makande, the spokesman for the PP, defended the arrests.

“This government is only trying to promote a culture of accountability and the arrests, therefore, are justifiable because people need to know what happened to their president (Bingu wa Mutharika) and why they wanted to stop President Banda from taking over,” Makande told IPS.

Over two million families who solely depend on Lake Malawi for their livelihoods are anxiously putting their hopes into an upcoming mediation between Malawi and Tanzania. Pictured here a Malawian fishing on Lake Malawi. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Mar 3 2013 (IPS)

Over two million families who solely depend on Lake Malawi for their livelihoods are anxiously putting their hopes into an upcoming mediation between Malawi and Tanzania intended to put an end to a longstanding ownership dispute.

The mediation will start this month after both parties agreed in December to engage the assistance of the Forum for Former African Heads of State and Government, which is chaired by Mozambique’s former President Joachim Chissano.

“After several attempts to settle the dispute, we came to the realisation that we have failed and we needed a third party to help us,” principal secretary in Malawi’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Patrick Kambabe, told IPS.

“In January, Malawi submitted its position after agreeing that the Forum help us to settle the dispute,” Kambabe said.



In an interview with Tanzanian media, Kambabe’s Tanzanian counterpart John Haule confirmed that his country, too, had agreed to involving the former leaders and had submitted its own position paper to Chissano.

“The forum is now reviewing the document and we will thereafter seek consultation if it is needed,” according to Haule.

He said that he expected the matter to be settled in three months.

According to authorities, about 1.5 million Malawians and 600,000 Tanzanians depend on Africa’s third-largest lake for food, transportation and other daily needs.

When IPS visited Karonga District, on the shores of Lake Malawi, surrounding communities said they were worried about the increased tension and keen to see a resolution.

“I used to cross the border into Kyela in Tanzania every two weeks to exchange sugar for clothes, which I sell. But now I only go once a month because Tanzanian immigration officials at Songwe border have become very harsh and are mistreating us,” said Joyce Nyirongo, a mother of four. She was fearful to elaborate on the mistreatment.

Known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania and Lago Niassa in Mozambique, the disputed water mass is thought to sit over rich oil and gas reserves, according to recent Malawian government reports.

The mineral potential has rekindled a border dispute between Malawi and Tanzania, which has remained unresolved for almost half a century.

The conflict escalated last July when Malawi awarded oil exploration licenses to United Kingdom-based Surestream Petroleum.

And last December, Malawi awarded the second-largest license to SacOil Holdings Ltd. of South Africa, a move that deepened the crisis.

Twice, the two countries tried to resolve the dispute diplomatically, but to no avail.

Both countries are hoping for the best outcome that will settle the dispute, once and for all when mediation begins this month.

Colonial treaty claims

Malawi’s first president, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, was the first to claim that Lake Malawi was part of the southern African nation. He based his claim on the 1890 Heligoland Agreement between Britain and Germany, which stipulated that the border between the countries lay along the Tanzanian side of the lake.

The treaty was reaffirmed at the 1963 Organisation of African Unity Summit in Ethiopia and was reluctantly accepted by Tanzania.

Malawi’s Foreign Affairs Minister Ephraim Chiume told IPS that their position is based on the 1890 Treaty and that the African Union in 2002 and 2007 upheld the colonial agreement.

“The Heligoland Treaty gave the entire lake to us and this is what forms the basis of our position and proof that we own the entire lake,” said Chiume.

Tanzania’s position is that the treaty was flawed. Tanzania has remained resolute that it owns half of the lake – saying that the border runs through the middle of the lake excluding the section that lies in Mozambique.

Tanzania’s position is that a partition drawn in the middle of the lake, stressing that this is the practice among countries which share water bodies.

“Tanzania has sought recourse to international law, which indicates that borders are generally in the middle of a body of water… Tanzania should therefore own half the lake,” Tanzanian Minister of Foreign Affairs Benard Membe told IPS in a telephone interview.

Membe said that the treaty was flawed because it denied Tanzanian’s living on the shores of the lake their given right to utilise proximate water and marine resources to earn their daily living.

These are the positions that Chissano and his two colleagues; former South African President Thabo Mbeki and former Botswana President Ketumire Masire will have to consider.

Environmental concerns

Meanwhile, the dispute has also brought to the fore the impact oil drilling would have on a fresh water lake blessed with over 2,000 different fish species, which attracts scuba divers the world over.

Local environmentalists fear that drilling in the lake will damage eco-tourism and the marine environment affecting the fishing region in the northern part of the country.

“It will endanger the social and economic lives of millions of people directly dependent on the lake for water, transport and most importantly fish for protein,” said Reginald Mumba of Rehabilitation of the Environment — a local environmental non-profit

After direct talks between the two countries failed at the end of last year, Malawi President Joyce Banda had stated her intention to take the dispute to the International Court of Justice.

Politicians and fisherfolk alike now hope that the mediation process will expedite a peaceful resolution to the conflict without the involvement of the court.

Fishing families on Lake Malawi, Karonga District. Many fisherfolk have said they have been beaten up and detained by Tanzanian police since the dispute over the lake began late last year. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
KARONGA, Malawi, Feb 27 2013 (IPS)

Since he was nine years old, Martin Mhango from Karonga village in northern Malawi has known no other livelihood than fishing. And for the last 33 years he has been fishing freely on Lake Malawi – that is, until last October when he was detained and beaten by Tanzanian security forces.



“They stopped me, dragged me to the beach where they beat me up and detained me. They told me that I had trespassed and was fishing on the Tanzanian side,” Mhango, 42, told IPS. “I was told to never fish on their side again.  He had been fishing on both sides of the lake for years, he said, just as Tanzanian fisherfolk did.

The dispute over Africa’s third-largest lake, which is also known as Lake Nyasa in Tanzania, dates back half a century.

Malawi claims sovereignty over the entirety of the 29,600-square-kilometre lake that straddles the borders of Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.

Meanwhile, Tanzania says 50 percent is part of its territory.

The dispute between both southern African countries reignited when Malawi awarded exploration licenses to United Kingdom-based Surestream Petroleum in 2011 to search for oil and gas on Lake Malawi.

Tanzanian authorities want Surestream Petroleum to postpone any planned drilling on the lake until the dispute is resolved. But Malawi has remained defiant.

Last December, the Malawian government awarded the second-largest oil exploration license (after the Surestream license) to South African company SacOil Holdings Limited.

So far, oil companies have yet to begin drilling and are still exploring the centre of the lake, which has been cordoned off.

But several fishing families like Mhango’s that work along Songwe River in northern Malawi are already caught up in this row, making the fisherman fear that the two countries will eventually go to war.

After the October incident, Mhango has been careful not to venture into the waters on the purportedly Tanzanian side, which has affected his livelihood.

A reduced catch has lowered his income from over 286 dollars per month to just 142 dollars.

“I have all my life been a fisherman and this is the first time I am unable to fish freely on the lake and I fear for my future,” he said.

Josiah Mwangoshi, 52, remembers belonging to two villages when he was growing up – one on the Malawian side and another on the Tanzanian side.

“My village is right along Songwe River and I remember that when the river used to shift its course, we would migrate to the Tanzanian side and later on return to the Malawian side when the river shifted again,” Mwangoshi told IPS.

“But I am now afraid that the Tanzanians may arrest me. I can no longer live and fish on the Tanzanian side where I also have a family, because it’s now clear that the dispute is very deep,” he said.

Reports of alleged beatings and harassment of Malawian fisherfolk in October last year forced Malawi’s President Joyce Banda to cut off the dialogue that had started between the two countries.

The wrangle deepened when last November Tanzania published a new map shifting the boundary between Tanzania and Malawi to the middle of the lake.

Banda, angry with the new map and Tanzania’s harassment of fisherfolk, called a press conference in the capital Lilongwe a few days later and announced that she had protested to the United Nations General Secretary and cancelled a planned state visit to Tanzania.

But Tanzanian High Commissioner to Malawi, Patrick Tsere, defended his country’s actions saying that no Malawian fisherfolk have ever been harassed in Tanzanian territorial waters.

“Tanzania’s security forces have never engaged in such behaviour. It’s rather us who have been worried that Malawian planes have been seen flying into Tanzania territory without our permission,” Tsere told IPS.

Many believe that the row over the lake has the potential to worsen if significant oil and gas is discovered.

“This dispute has been around for over 50 years but it has heightened and entered the public domain now because of the potential of oil and gas discoveries,” Udule Mwakasungura, the executive director for the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, a Malawian NGO, told IPS.

“Lake Malawi contains more than 2,000 different fish species — our worry is that oil exploration and its subsequent drilling will affect the fresh water ecosystem,” he added.

The lake has been witnessing a decline in fish stocks from 30,000 metric tonnes a year to just 2,000 tonnes over the last 20 years, according to a recent Ministry of Agriculture report read in parliament this February.

Last month, both countries presented their position papers after agreeing that the dispute would be mediate by the Southern African Development Community former heads of state, also known as the African Forum.

“We agreed with Tanzania that we will hand over the mediation to the African Forum and so far we have both presented our position papers. A mediation process should commence before the end of this month or early March,” Malawi’s Secretary for Foreign Affairs and International Co-operation, Patrick Kabambe, told IPS.

Mhango and Mwangoshi have pinned all their hopes on the mediation efforts.

“I have been following news reports about this on the radio and my prayer is that the former African leaders resolve this issue once and for all,” said Mwangoshi.

Mhango has similar hopes. “All I want is to go back and start fishing freely on this lake — because without that, my family’s future is doomed.”

Protestors at a Jan. 17 rally sing songs against Malawi’s president, Joyce Banda. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Jan 22 2013 (IPS)

She has taken a personal pay cut, promised reforms, resumed aid flows from Western donors and put her predecessor’s private jet up for sale.

Malawi’s president Joyce Banda seems to be making all the right moves to win over the hearts and minds of this impoverished southern African nation’s roughly 14 million people.

With over 65 percent of the population living below the poverty line, 1.4 million children involved in child labour and 74 percent of the country scratching out a living on less than 1.25 dollars a day, Malawi is desperate for change, and Banda has been the face of it for nearly a year.

Riding on a groundswell of popular support, the president came into office in April 2012 after the sudden death of her mercurial predecessor, Bingu wa Mutharika; but that popularity is eroding fast as she implements painful austerity policies to fix a sputtering economy.

The aid-dependent country teetered under the late Mutharika, whose squabbles with international donors led to a freeze in major assistance packages amounting to about 500 million dollars.

The cut in aid, which has traditionally accounted for 40 percent of the country’s budget, coincided with a steady decline in tobacco sales, Malawi’s main export earner, which have gone down by more than 50 percent since 2010.

In fact, experts here say that the high-level visit early this month by IMF Chief Christine Lagarde may have done more harm than good for Banda’s waning popularity.

Already the president has capitulated to unpopular reforms demanded by the IMF and other Western donors on whom Malawi is heavily dependent, such as devaluing the currency by 49 percent, increasing petroleum prices three times in her presidency and cutting off subsidies by moving to an automatic fuel price adjustment mechanism.

These reforms have had devastating domino effects on the country’s poor, affecting people like Shadreck Kumwembe, a primary school teacher who earns less than a dollar a day.

“My real income has halved in the last few months because of the devaluation, and yet food prices have been going up — I can’t afford to pay for everything,” Kumwembe, who also disclosed that he has not received his salary from the government in the last three months, told IPS.

Commodity prices have soared and pushed inflation to 33.3 percent in December – far higher than the government’s forecast of around 18 percent for 2012.

The latest data from the Centre for Social Concern, a local research institution focusing on the cost of living in urban Malawi, showed that since Banda took over, a family of six now needs an average of 200 dollars per month to meet basic food demands – bad news in a country where the minimum monthly wage is about 20 dollars.

On Jan. 17, just a few days after Lagarde’s visit, thousands of Malawians took to the streets peacefully in all three major cities of the country for the first large-scale protests under Banda, against what they described as “the IMF’s wrong economic prescriptions”.

“I blame IMF policies for all these high prices and job losses we are experiencing. Lagarde’s insistence that Malawi continues on this path underlines how out of touch the IMF is with reality,” said James Chivunde, a civil servant who joined the protests last week.

“Late President Mutharika refused to listen to them (IMF) to devalue the kwacha (the local currency) because he knew exactly how that was going to impact us,” Lloyd Phiri, another protestor, told IPS.

According to John Kapito, head of the watchdog known as the Consumers Association of Malawi, Banda has “transferred power” to the IMF and the World Bank.

“Like many leaders of poor countries, the problem with Joyce Banda is that she doesn’t think on her own. She is listening to everything that the IMF and the World Bank are telling her. She (agreed) to devalue the kwacha, agreed to remove subsidies on fuel without considering the impact of these decisions on the poor,” said Kapito, who helped organise the latest demonstrations.

Meanwhile, the IMF is adamant that the only way out of the cycle of poverty is for Malawi to continue to abide by the Fund’s prescriptions.

“There have been huge efforts undertaken by the Malawian government and the Malawi population and it is really important to stay the course,” Lagarde said during a press conference held in the capital Lilongwe on Jan. 5.

She assured that the country is at a tipping point, that soon inflation will start dropping and prompt the Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) to revisit the base lending rate.

“Investors will return and we are confident that growth will resume,” she added.

Some local economic experts are inclined to agree with these sentiments.

“There will be no quick fixes, but any U-turn from the current course will be disastrous,” said Ben Kalua, professor of economics at Chancellor College, part of the University of Malawi.

“What is needed is a credible and consistent policy aimed at making economic growth more inclusive by ensuring the development and protection of social safety nets and expanding access to financial services so that everybody, including the poor, has access to credit,” he said.

Executive director of the Malawi Economic Justice Network, Dalitso Kubalasa, also backed the IMF and blamed the late Mutharika for delaying implementation of economic reforms.

“We are now paying the cost of the previous administration’s (policies) but we have to stay the course to (solve) the economic problems,” Kubalasa told IPS.

While admitting that the government underestimated the impact of austerity policies on the masses, Finance Minister Ken Lipenga stressed that donor support is enabling the government to implement a fiscal budget that provides adequate resources for the delivery of social services and to increase resources allocated for cushioning the most vulnerable.

“We have introduced food for work programmes aimed at assisting the poorest in our communities to cope with the unintended effects of the reforms,” Lipenga told IPS.

But Banda’s waning popularity may affect successful implementation of the reforms as she prepares for an election next year. Her biggest test will come when the parliament convenes in February, when she will be forced to reckon with the fact that many members of her governing party are losing faith in her leadership.

(END)

Women in Kasungu, a farming district in Central Malawi, select dried tobacco leaves to sell at the market. Its small farmers like these that grow tobacco in Malawi. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
LILONGWE, Nov 9 2012 (IPS)

The latest proposals by the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control to stop farming of the crop could potentially affect about two million livelihoods in Malawi and decide the fate of an entire nation struggling with a sputtering economy.

This is according to the chief executive officer of Malawi’s Tobacco Control Commission, Bruce Munthali.

Tobacco is this southern African nation’s main foreign currency earner and accounts for more than 70 percent of exports and 15 percent of GDP. The industry employs an estimated two million of Malawi’s 13 million people.

The proposals, expected to be tabled during the Fifth Session of the Conference of Parties to the WHO FCTC (CoP5) in South Korea, Nov. 12 to 17, may change those statistics forever if bank loans to growers are stopped, contracts between growers and buyers are halted and official bodies working with tobacco producers are dismantled.

“If the proposals are adopted at the CoP5, this will mean the end of the source income for many in Malawi and the consequences would be far-reaching for our already fragile economy,” Munthali told IPS.

The FCTC recommendations include reducing the land allocated to cultivating the crop and denying farmers the right to grow tobacco. The Convention also suggests regulating the seasons of the year in which tobacco farming is allowed.

The suggestions have put Malawi at a crossroads. While the new administration of President Joyce Banda is trying to boost tobacco production to increase its foreign reserves this year, the proposals threaten to spoil the party.

Munthali accused the FCTC of imposing its recommendations on poor countries like Malawi.

“These proposals have not been fully discussed by most member countries and they have just been imposed on us. There should have been a process of consultation,” said Munthali.

The domino effect of these proposals would not only affect farmers in Malawi, but tobacco growers globally.

“If these measures go forward, the consequences will be devastating for millions of farmers and their families while the positive impact on public health will be negligible,” Antonio Abrunhosa, chief executive officer for the International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA), told IPS.

The association held the first ever World Tobacco Growers Day in Nigeria in October and used the occasion to galvanise its base of 30 million tobacco growers and appeal to various governments not to assent to the proposals.

The FCTC was negotiated by the 192-member states of WHO to become the world’s first public health treaty after the final agreement was reached in May 2003. It also provides the basic tools for countries to enact comprehensive tobacco control legislation aimed at abolishing tobacco farming by 2025.

Though Malawi is not yet party to the treaty, the framework has already left the country bleeding.

One indication of how the global anti-tobacco lobby has affected Malawi is the slowdown in earnings. In the last three years, revenue from tobacco dropped from 416 million dollars in 2010 to 292 million dollars in 2011 and 177 million dollars this year.

Malawi is also currently recovering from a decision by donors to freeze aid which accounted for almost 40 percent of the budget.

“Growing tobacco has been our life for generations in my family. Though we have not become rich from this, we have managed to learn how to read and write and build homes that don’t leak,” Samson Phiri, a smallholder farmer, told IPS.

Yotamu Kalumbu, another farmer and father of five, told IPS: “If WHO enforces those rules against us, they will not only destroy Malawi but my family as well.”

The Banda administration said it was taking the proposals against tobacco as a major economic threat to the country.

“We won’t take this lying down because this is Malawi’s strategic crop and it will remain so for some time to come,” Minister of Trade and Industry John Bande told IPS.

Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Peter Mwanza told IPS: “Understandably, the FCTC will continue to take its toll…on production, marketing and consumption which is already affecting millions of our people and our economy.”

The Tobacco Association of Malawi (TAMA), a body that represents the interests of growers, said they would fight on.

“The battle continues. The good news is that burley tobacco may not be banned as an ingredient but that now presents the best opportunity for us as a country to start analysing the implications of the FCTC,” TAMA president Reuben Maigwa told IPS

He said there was a need for some policy changes within the tobacco industry, which the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security needed to champion with a rational approach.

As for the thousands of tobacco growers in the country like Phiri, their money is on the government and TAMA to win the battle for them.

“Our prayer is that they defeat the proposals when they go to CoP5 so that we can continue growing the crop without any worries of losing the source of our livelihoods,” said Phiri.

Malawi has opened up negotiations on the economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union, which have been deadlocked since 2002.

The new round of negotiations may see President Joyce Banda’s administration change the status quo and sign the free trade agreement.

“We have opened up negotiations and consultations on EPAs. We can’t ignore the issue anymore like the previous administration, and President Banda will pay attention to this,” said the country’s trade minister John Bande.

A classroom block of a school in the capital Lilongwe. The government’s current position is that an EPA would have to push development. Credit: Mabvuto Banda/IPS

The EU extended the deadline for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries, which includes Malawi, to negotiate the EPAs from 2014 to 2016.

President Bingu wa Mutharika, who died after a heart attack in April this year, had refused to sign the agreement, demanding that rural roads, health and education facilities be taken care of before signing an EPA.

Mutharika, a former U.N. trade expert, believed that the EPA would reinforce Malawi’s position as an exporter of low-value agriculture commodities, deprive government of policy space to use tariffs to protect livelihoods, and grow the manufacturing sector.

But the new administration is reviewing all the arguments against the EPA, shifting focus on what the country stands to gain from the agreement.

“We are reviewing our position on EPA because we want to also look at the potential benefits of signing the EPA, and development will still be at the heart of our negotiations because Malawi is facing supply-side constraints which have had an impact on our competitiveness,” Bande said.

This, he said, will form the basis of the final decision.

Malawi is negotiating an EPA under the Eastern and Southern African grouping which is negotiating in six clusters; development issues, market access, agriculture, trade in services, fisheries and trade- related issues.

President Banda is in Brussels this week attending the European Development Day. She is expected to discuss the future of the EPA with Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade.

EU ambassador to Malawi Alexander Baum said that the meeting between President Banda and Commissioner De Gucht would be a political discussion on how to move forward.

“It seems the former administration did not understand the agreement and did not see any need to sign it…all her neighbours are benefiting from the European market and if the country is really to turn into a predominantly exporting country then this is the right opportunity,” Baum said.

Malawi, said Baum, takes about 0.01 percent of Europe’s goods, while Europe buys almost 30 percent of Malawian products.

Geoff Mkandawire, chairman of the National Working Group on Trade Policy, believes the EPA would be good for the sugar industry.

“Malawi is generally a lower-cost producer of agriculture products and goods, and access to EU markets would create a basis for further investments in the sugar industry,” Mkandawire said.

But the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI), a grouping of the local private sector, does not see the EPAs in their current form as benefiting Malawi.

“EPAs are an important agent for development for ACP countries that leverage on trade with the EU. The downside is that the capacity of business in ACP countries is not strong enough to face the reality of opening the markets,” said Chancellor Kaferapanjira, CEO for MCCCI

He said the negotiations should recognise the differences in capacity with regard to trade, as well as the assistance needed to enable ACPs to effectively trade with the EU.

Several local civil society groups believe the EPA would have negative effects on Malawi’s trade with other countries in the region and undermine the regional integration processes.

If Malawi signs the agreement, it will be another major policy shift by President Banda, who has rolled back repressive legislation by her mercurial predecessor Mutharika and removed the Kwacha peg against the dollar since she took office.

The January floods resulted in the contamination of water sources in Nsjane, including boreholes and dug-out wells, thereby escalating the cholera incidents. Credit: Claire Ngozo/IPS

By Mabvuto Banda
NSANJE, Malawi, Oct 13 2012 (IPS)

For many women in Malawi’s disaster-prone southern district of Nsanje, resilience is essential to survive the cyclical flooding.

Twenty-four-year-old Chrissie Davie, a mother of four, saved two of her three children from drowning when water filled her house as she slept early this year.

About 6,157 families lost their property, over a thousand hectares of crop fields were ruined and 343 houses were destroyed in a matter of minutes when tropical cyclone Funso from the Mozambican channel landed on southern Malawi in January. The region is hit annually by high rainfall around this time of year.

“Water came so quickly that by the time I woke up, it was too late for Chimwemwe, my youngest son,” she told IPS.

Chimwemwe was already dead when she reached to pull him out of the floodwaters.

He was only 18 months old.

Davie used an empty drum to float her two remaining children, four-year-old Saulos and two-year-old Moses, to safety.

Chrissie Davie now lives in a makeshift shelter with her children after floods destroyed her house in January. Courtesy: Mabvuto Banda

She reached Chikoje, one of the schools in Traditional Authority Mbenje, southern Malawi.

But within hours, she, together with the others who sought safety there, abandoned the school when the floodwaters rose. They walked for hours to reach a Malawi Defence Forces emergency camp called Nyatwa.

Sandram Chale recalls how in 2003 his wife saved him when flash floods hit their village in Nsanje.

“My wife firmly gripped my right hand and dragged me out of the water that had filled our house as we slept…I was too drunk, too weak to swim,” Chale said. He was talking about the flooding caused by two weeks of torrential rains that destroyed thousands of homes in eight districts, leaving 300,000 people destitute, eight people dead and several missing.

Dorothy Chale did not only save her husband. She also saved her four children from drowning when raging waters crashed into their home after the banks of the Ruo and Shire rivers burst.

These are some of the untold stories of extraordinary bravery by women in this part of the country. But they are not the only ones coping in times of disaster here.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), this landlocked, resource-poor southern African nation is vulnerable to a wide range of shocks and disasters, including yearly flooding and drought once every three to five years.

“Although the likely impact of climate change cannot yet be specified for Malawi with a high level of confidence, forecasts for southern Africa indicate that it is likely to face some of the most extreme climate changes,” the UNDP says.

Because 65 percent of the country’s population live below the poverty line, with an overwhelming large percentage of Malawi’s 16 million people located in rural areas and dependent on maize for their livelihoods, there is a need to “elaborate a national disaster risk reduction strategy and integrate it in government policies and programmes,” according to the UNDP.

Malawi began prioritising risk reduction in 2009, and the country’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs was allocated about 99,000 dollars to raise awareness for disaster risk management in the 2011/2012 budget.

About 3.2 million dollars is set aside for responding to disasters, according to a joint report by the Malawi Economic Justice Network, Christian Aid and the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy. However, this is retained by the Treasury and not the disaster management department.

“The Department of Disaster Management Affairs needs to have its own vote with adequate resources for their activities other than waiting for the same from the Treasury. This would enhance their programming as some of the disasters have actually become very predictable of late,” stated the report titled “2011/2012 Draft National Budget Analysis with Focus on Climate Change”.

Agnes Chembe, 25, has learned through bitter experience the devastating consequences of these “predictable” disasters.

“My house used to be close to the river, but it was swept away during the last floods. It was destroyed,” she told IPS.

She is now living in a grass house about a kilometre from the Shire River.

It is the third time she has been forced to move because of flooding. Like most of the villagers in Nsanje, she now uses local knowledge to prepare for the next floods.

“I know for instance that the coming rainy season will not bring devastating floods like last year’s,” she said.

“But I am already preparing to move upland before disaster strikes,” said the mother of three who lives alone with her children. Her husband, she said, works in Blantyre, the country’s commercial capital, and only returns home once every six months.

District Commissioner for Nsanje Rodney Simwaka described the women in this region as invisible heroines.

“We always look at them as the victims and ignore their resilience in surviving these disasters because most of these women are home alone, their husbands are in town working when floods hit,” he told IPS.

“In most instances it is a woman who makes plans to move some property to another house on the high land, it’s a woman who uses local knowledge on how to survive and save her children first,” said Simwaka.

James Chiusiwa, of the Department of Poverty Management and Disaster Preparedness, agreed.

“What these women do is extraordinary, especially when you look at the fact that they are the most vulnerable in such situations. They survive the floods, continue to feed the family, and sustain the household all the time,” he told IPS.

On Oct. 13 the International Day for Disaster Reduction focused on highlight the need for women and girls to be at the forefront of reducing risk and managing the world’s response to natural hazards. Cyclical natural disasters are not a new phenomenon and it is not uncommon for rivers in this part of Malawi to burst their banks.

However, a recent increase in the frequency and intensity of floods has made the area both dangerous and difficult to farm, according to group village headman Osiyina

“We used to have floods every five years, but now they come almost every year,” he told IPS. “They are also a lot more violent and bigger than before and are now a serious threat to the livelihood of our villages, especially the women and children.”

Davie knows that her village is in a disaster-prone area and she always prepares for the worst. But she breaks down when she remembers how her child died, because she blames herself for being unable to save him.

“This is what I fear most all the time. I cannot afford to lose another child to floods and that in a way is my motivation to stay strong and to be always ready to survive against all odds when disaster strikes,” she said.