David Mkwambisi

Challenges and opportunities for carbon management in Malawi and Zambia

Policy initiatives targeting carbon management are increasingly linking climate change mitigation and adaptation with efforts to reduce poverty and advance sustainable development. This article draws on empirical semi-structured interview data and documentary analyses to present an assessment of the challenges and opportunities faced by national policymakers and other key stakeholders in achieving these ‘multiple wins’ in Malawi and Zambia. Lessons emerging from these study countries provide a useful basis for informing integrated carbon management, poverty reduction and sustainable development projects more widely in the southern Africa region. The findings reveal that multistakeholder partnerships are increasingly necessary, and we identify examples to illustrate that such collaborations are being established with varying degrees of success. The article suggests that discrete projects need to be adequately coordinated by umbrella organizations operating over larger scales in order to promote the longevity of project impacts at the local scale and to allow experiences and good practices to feed into national policy development. Capacity-building and resource investments across different levels are also shown to be vital.

Adaptation to climate change and desertification: Perspectives from national policy and autonomous practice in Malawi

This article explores the ways in which the interlinked challenges of climate change and desertification are managed in Malawi1. It examines the adaptations outlined in national policy to address desertification and climate change (in accordance with international commitments to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) as well as the local autonomous adaptations being undertaken at household level. While policy efforts to address desertification and climate change share some common ground, they appear to be poorly mainstreamed into broader development processes at the national level. At the same time, many agricultural and livelihood adaptations outlined in national policy focus primarily on rural areas rather than embracing the rural—urban flows of people and money, identified as vital in the local-level analyses. Given current in-country migration patterns and Malawis rapid urbanization, this is an important oversight. A more integrated approach is necessary within national policy to consider rural and urban areas and their interlinkages, and play a stronger facilitating role in supporting local autonomous adaptations. This is vital if adaptation efforts are to contribute to wider development goals and have a greater impact on increasing overall resilience to environmental and climate change.

Mainstreaming conservation agriculture in Malawi: Knowledge gaps and institutional barriers.

Conservation agriculture (CA) practices of reduced soil tillage, permanent organic soil coverage and intercropping/crop rotation, are being advocated globally, based on perceived benefits for crop yields, soil carbon storage, weed suppression, reduced soil erosion and improved soil water retention. However, some have questioned their efficacy due to uncertainty around the performance and trade-offs associated with CA practices, and their compatibility with the diverse livelihood strategies and varied agro-ecological conditions across African smallholder systems. This paper assesses the role of key institutions in Malawi in shaping pathways towards more sustainable land management based on CA by outlining their impact on national policy-making and the design and implementation of agricultural development projects. It draws on interviews at national, district and project levels and a multi-stakeholder workshop that mapped the institutional landscape of decision-making for agricultural land management practices. Findings identify knowledge gaps and institutional barriers that influence land management decision-making and constrain CA uptake. We use our findings to set out an integrated roadmap of research needs and policy options aimed at supporting CA as a route to enhanced sustainable land management in Malawi. Findings offer lessons that can inform design, planning and implementation of CA projects, and identify the multi-level institutional support structures required for mainstreaming sustainable land management in sub-Saharan Africa.

Climate change adaptation and cross-sectoral policy coherence in southern Africa

To be effective, climate change adaptation needs to be mainstreamed across multiple sectors and greater policy coherence is essential. Using the cases of Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, this paper investigates the extent of coherence in national policies across the water and agriculture sectors and to climate change adaptation goals outlined in national development plans. A two-pronged qualitative approach is applied using Qualitative Document Analysis of relevant policies and plans, combined with expert interviews from non-government actors in each country. Findings show that sector policies have differing degrees of coherence on climate change adaptation, currently being strongest in Zambia and weakest in Tanzania. We also identify that sectoral policies remain more coherent in addressing immediate-term disaster management issues of floods and droughts rather than longer-term strategies for climate adaptation. Coherence between sector and climate policies and strategies is strongest when the latter has been more recently developed. However to date, this has largely been achieved by repackaging of existing sectoral policy statements into climate policies drafted by external consultants to meet international reporting needs and not by the establishment of new connections between national sectoral planning processes. For more effective mainstreaming of climate change adaptation, governments need to actively embrace longer-term cross-sectoral planning through cross-Ministerial structures, such as initiated through Zambia’s Interim Climate Change Secretariat, to foster greater policy coherence and integrated adaptation planning.

What is the evidence that gender affects access to and use of forest assets for food security? A systematic map protocol

BackgroundThere is increasing awareness of the importance of gender in natural resource management. Especially for communities dependent upon forests for their livelihoods, gender roles and relations can affect access to forest resources, income and food generating activities. As a consequence, gender mediated access to forest products may lead to different food security outcomes for women, men and children. Because gender is a cross-cutting issue of importance for many development, research and state institutions, this study examines the existing evidence base related to gendered access to forest products and food security in low to middle income countries. Hence, the primary question for this study is: what is the evidence that gender affects access to and use of forest assets for food security? The study will systematically map the evidence in order to get a comprehensive understanding of what evidence exists in terms of type of studies, geographical distribution, length of assessment periods, methodological approaches, and document outcomes related to food security as well as identify gaps for further research.MethodsThis systematic map protocol describes the methodology that will be used to search, identify and describe the evidence on gender and access to and use of forest resources in low and middle-income countries. The searches will be conducted for the period from 1970 to 2015 using main bibliographic databases and grey literature sources. To identify relevant evidence, predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria will be used to screen the title, abstracts and full text of the secured literature. This will be followed up with a study appraisal and data mapping process describing the methods and outcomes reported in the studies. The final output will be a simple descriptive statistical narrative report and an evidence map.