| Objective / Goal |
The activities implemented under the Action were anchored around two specific objectives in a twin-track approach, focusing on both upstream (institutional) and downstream (community and household-level) interventions contributing to an increase in adaptive capacities. The specific objectives were the increased resilience of vulnerable communities and households to climate variability and change and increased institutional adaptive capacities for scaling up and replication. The Action implemented community outreach activities focusing on Climate-Smart agriculture (CSA), CCA, DRR, nutrition surveillance and education, as well as group savings and loans schemes and community social cohesion to solve disaster-related challenges and systemic vulnerabilities. The number of beneficiaries reached surpassed the target, in large part due to overwhelming demand from communities to receive season-long Farmer Field School (FFS) learning, which allowed them to acquire knowledge and skills on different CCA practices. In addition to public extension workers, the Action built the capacity of community-based facilitators (CBFs) in FFS methodology as part of a sustainability and exit strategy. This enabled adequate advisory support of the community outreach groups, while allowing for the establishment of more community outreach groups with technical backstopping from government extension workers.
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| Activities |
- Community outreach activities reaching 195 000 active resource users
and 325 community outreach groups across the four target districts
(Blantyre, Zomba, Neno and Phalombe), surpassing the target of
172 800 resource users organized around 240 groups.
- Capacities built for 125 public extension workers and 270 CBFs on
the FFS methodology, a range of CSA practices, integrated watershed
management, entrepreneurial skills and group savings and credit.
At least 296 outreach groups established and operationalized
Group Savings and Loans Schemes, with cumulative savings totalling
MWK 128 304 036 by the end of the project.
- 833 field days in the four districts, attracting an attendance estimated
at 263 228 farmers from the wider community. Topics covered
included crop variety performance comparisons, Conservation
Agriculture practices and basic technologies such as pit planting,
mulching and agroforestry, soil and water conservation practices and
integrated production and pest management.
- At least 820 ha of land brought under irrigation, thereby contributing
to the household food and income security of at least 8 220 farming
households through improved adaptation to dry spells and ability
to farm throughout the year.
- 5 110 farm households trained and provided with 104 solar-powered
water pumps and 121 drip kit sets. A further 3 710 farm households
benefited from the construction of water-harvesting facilities,
including 37 seepage wells and four water harvesting ponds, as well
as watering cans and assorted garden tools.
- Outreach groups supported to set up community-managed
tree nurseries, which raised at least 3 629 136 seedlings, of which
2 703 850 were planted in the intervention areas – with a survival
rate of 91 percent.
- Support for development and operationalization of the Unified
Beneficiary Registry (UBR), which was piloted in Phalombe district. Its
aim was to improve coordination of resilience, humanitarian and
social support programmes. The key achievement of this pilot was the
integration of agriculture variables in the harmonized data collection
tool, with the emerging lessons informing the Government’s
advocacy agenda for scaling out UBR coverage.
- 300 FFS groups established seed banks of local landraces which
were close to extinction but have wider agro-ecological adaptation.
The group seed banks were a source of planting materials and a total
of 16 602 farming families accessed the seeds through the pass-on
programme. These crops (millet, sorghum, cowpeas, pigeon pea,
dolichos bean) significantly contributed to improved food, nutrition
and income security among beneficiary households. While local
cereals such as finger millet, pearl millet and sorghum improved food
security by supplementing maize production, the legumes (cowpeas,
pigeon pea and dolichos), interplanted with maize, improved soil
productivity in the action districts, thereby ensuring resilient crop
production systems.
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