A $52.3 million project approved today by the Green Climate Fund (GCF) aims to help Malawi cope with the devastating effects of climate change and boost the country's long-term food security.
Led by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the project is set to benefit nearly 575,000 vulnerable people in rural communities over six years. It will deliver urgently needed investments in adaption and resilience in Malawi, which the UN categorizes as a Least Developed Country.
The project, Ecosystems-based Adaptation for Resilient Watersheds and Communities in Malawi (EbAM), was approved by the GCF Board at its 39th meeting in Songdo, South Korea.
"This project offers a comprehensive, inclusive, and innovative approach to building climate resilience in Malawi, addressing both major environmental and socio-economic challenges in the context of climate change. We welcome the GCF Board's approval and look forward to working with our Malawi counterparts to help transform Malawi's agriculture sector through impactful, holistic ecosystem-based climate actions," said FAO Deputy Director-General Maria Helena Semedo. This is part of implementing FAO's strategy on Climate Change 2022-2031 and Action Plan 2022-2025.
Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world, with 70 percent of its population living below the international poverty line. Its rural communities, which depend primarily on rainfed agriculture for their livelihoods, are already experiencing the effects of climate change, including rising temperatures, unpredictable rainfall, and more frequent and intense extreme weather events.
In 2023, acute food insecurity reported in the country was attributed to a significant decrease in the production of maize--the country's leading staple food--due to droughts and floods brought about by tropical cyclones, coupled with existing soil degradation.
Going forward, climate change is expected to continue to alter the onset of the rainy season, increase water stress, and intensify incidents of pests and diseases, making it even more difficult for smallholders to grow cash and subsistence crops. This will likely put farming communities under increased pressure to resort to unsustainable land use practices, further exacerbating land degradation.
Inclusive approach
The project aims to increase the resilience of rural communities at the watershed and farm levels, where ecosystem-based approaches and integrated sustainable water and soil management are critical to agricultural production and adaptation to climate change. It will also restore more than 83,000 hectares of communal and farmland.
Crucially, it adopts an inclusive and participatory approach that engages women, youth, and other vulnerable groups in all aspects of the project.
Local communities will be empowered to formulate village-level action plans (VLAPs) to conserve, restore, and sustainably manage landscapes through green infrastructure (such as gully plugs and check dams) and sustainable forest management and restoration. Communities involved in the project will receive native and well-adapted seeds and seedlings to promote high biodiversity, which is crucial for resilience, as well as equipment and materials such as wheelbarrows, shovels, wire, and boulders required to perform the work.
Farmer Field Schools will enable community members to acquire essential knowledge in sustainable agricultural practices that enhance resilience and minimize greenhouse gas emissions. This includes promoting agrobiodiversity, growing drought-resilient crops, and using weather information.
In addition to improving livelihoods and resilience, the project also aims to increase farmers' access to markets and financing opportunities, as well as to regional and international value chains, through the strengthening of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA), the creation of public-private producer partnerships, capacity building for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and technical support to financial institutions.
"Today marks a historic moment for Malawi's agricultural sector," said Sam Dalitso Kawale, Malawi's Minister of Agriculture. "The investment will increase the resilience of our rural communities at watershed and farm level, where good water and soil management are crucial to sustainable agricultural production."
Source: The Herald
In tobacco production, curing the crop once it is harvested is an essential step towards making the harvested commodity ready for the market.
The most common methods for curing tobacco are by air, flue, sun and fire. In Malawi however, small-scale tobacco farmers commonly use fire, where open wood fires are kindled on the floor of a curing barn, and the curing process can either be continuous or intermittent, extending three to ten weeks before the leaf can be cured to the desired finish and be ready for the market.
But with wood fire curing of tobacco having the potential to increase deforestation levels and contribute to environmental degradation and consequently climate change, the tobacco company Philip Morris International (PMI) says it is working with small-scale tobacco farmers in Malawi, Argentina, China and Mozambique among other countries, in an integrated production system that ensures the wood used to cure the tobacco after harvesting is from sustainably managed forests.
For a long time, environmental organizations not only in Malawi but across the world have contended that the growing of tobacco has many serious environmental consequences which include loss of biodiversity, increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide and soil erosion among other effects, because cutting down trees for curing the crop after harvest directly causes deforestation.
PMI Sustainability, Activation and Support Director Miguel Coleta says forest sustainability is indeed paramount and the production of tobacco should not be allowed to cause degradation.
He says the company is working with local farmers in six countries including Malawi, where it offers both technical and financial support so that farmers use the forests where they get the wood to cure tobacco sustainably.
"As part of this relationship, we can have farm-by-farm monitoring of the tobacco production to ensure it is sustainably produced and the forests where wood to cure it comes from are sustainably managed. Today, we know where the wood is coming from on each farm, from among the farmers we are working with. We also do monitor to ensure that the investments we have made over the years, in this sustainability push is bearing the intended results," he said.
Mr. Coleta says in 2022 alone, PMI invested 6.6 million United States dollars in six countries including Malawi, on projects aimed at reforestation through awareness programs with farmers, which he says are key towards ensuring sustainability in environmental conservation. In the case of Malawi, Universal Leaf is the local partner in these activities.
"So we take a landscape approach. When we think about the environment, we think about the intersection between the impact of tobacco growing on the individual, the farmer, the community and the environment itself, and these impacts are addressed through this integrated production system," Mr. Coleta said.
Mr. Coleta explained that engaging directly with the farmer in this integrated production system is fundamental so that small-scale farmers can have predictability in terms of not only having a buyer for their produce or having a favorable price for their crop, but also having access to best practices that will improve their production capacity by taking care of the environment where they grow their crops.
"Sustainability is not just about managing the negatives but also looking for ways to create positives by using technology and innovation to drive value for society. In that sense, when it comes to tobacco growing, what is underpinning everything we are doing is the integrated production system," he explained.
In Malawi, Tobacco is considered green gold and the most profitable crop which can have over 20 times export value compared to tea, which is also an export from the country.
Mr. Coleta says through the integrated production system and to ensure sustainability in terms of the quality of tobacco, farmers have standard guidelines to follow which also include not using child labour, apart from using wood from sustainably managed forests in the curing of the harvested crop.
Meanwhile, the impacts of climate change on the farmer have also been an issue of concern, with tobacco production especially in Malawi being dependent on the rainy season, making access to water a subject that needs to be addressed so that farmers do not just rely on tobacco growing, but can grow other crops during the long dry season.
"Water is important for health, safety and hygiene, and having access to water without women having to walk for kilometers before getting the commodity is paramount. There is also a need for the farmer to have the ability to grow other things apart from tobacco since tobacco is one hundred percent rain-fed.
"So that's why in recent years, we have been working with communities and our business partners in local areas, digging hundreds of boreholes and hand pumps to provide access to water through what we call the wash program," Mr. Coleta explained.
African governments are seeking an extension of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) beyond 2025. The law was enacted in 2000 to "encourage increased trade and investment between the United States and sub-Saharan Africa". We asked David Luke, who specializes in African trade policy and trade negotiations, what benefits Agoa has brought for qualifying African countries and how it can be improved.
To what extent has the Agoa goal been achieved?
The duty- and quota-free access to the US market granted by Agoa has helped in boosting trade and investment between sub-Saharan Africa and the US. Many of the qualifying African countries have recorded specific successes in goods exported under Agoa to the US. These include textiles and apparel from Kenya, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Lesotho, Ghana and Madagascar. In Kenya, for instance, the apparel-dominated Agoa sales have grown from US$55 million in 2001 to US$603 million in 2022, accounting for 67.6% of the country's total exports to the US.
South Africa has sub-Saharan Africa's most diversified export list. The value of its automotive sales to the US has increased by 447.3% between 2001 and 2022 under Agoa. South Africa's vehicle exports to the US increased by 1,643.6% in the first year of Agoa, from 853 units in 2000 to 14,873 units in 2001.
Other country specific successes include Ghana where non-oil products like plant roots, textiles and travel goods are accessing the US market under Agoa. Ghana's exports to the US grew from US$206 million in 2000 to US$2.76 bilion in 2022, though only 26% of this trade was under Agoa.
The Agoa window has also lifted chocolate and basket-weaving materials from Mauritius; buckwheat, travel goods and musical instruments from Mali (suspended in 2022); Mozambique's sugar, nuts and tobacco; and Togo's wheat, legumes and fruit juices. Perhaps Ethiopia, which was suspended from Agoa in January 2022, best exemplifies the impact of the trade window on Africa's Industrialisation.
According to the World Bank, Ethiopia has attracted the world's attention with its ambitious Industrialisation plans, particularly through its industrial parks. The industrial parks, which mainly produce textiles and garments, have thrived on the duty-free and quota-free access to the US market.
In less than a decade, Ethiopia's industrial parks created 90,000 direct jobs, predominantly for women aged 18 to 25 years. Employment of this group is typically associated with a range of positive societal and economic spillovers.
Ethiopia's exports to the US increased from US$29 million to US$525 million in 2020, 45.3% of it under Agoa. Textile and garment exports that up to 2014 accounted for just 10% of the trade grew steadily to 69% over the period.
The industrial parks attracted 66 foreign firms investing about US$740 million since 2014/15, with Agoa as the major driver of the sector's investment and growth of its jobs and export earnings.
What's been the impact of Agoa on Africa's exports?
Between 2017 and 2020, the US became the third largest destination for Africa's industrial products after the European Union and intra-African trade. Agoa is part of the reason for this. That means Agoa has stimulated significant value addition in the region, traditionally known for exporting unprocessed items.
The positive impact on value chains explains why African countries such as Kenya, Lesotho and Mauritius have put so much diplomatic capital, and on occasion lobbying funding, into articulating a continuing case for Agoa's renewal.
The African countries have exploited the window to sell their manufactured goods to the US. This is the kind of trade that really matters for Africa's goal of economic transformation through "manufacturing, Industrialisation and value addition".
By comparison, during the 2017-2020 period, 87% of Africa's exports to China were fuels, ores and metals.
What kind of agreement are the US and Kenya negotiating?
The US and Kenya are not negotiating a bilateral free trade area agreement as is commonly misunderstood. What they are negotiating is a strategic trade and investment partnership which cannot be described as a free trade agreement as it does not include new market access arrangements.
The main goal of the partnership is to increase investment and to promote inclusive economic growth. It is meant to benefit workers, consumers and businesses (including small ones). Its other aim is to support African regional economic integration.
Given the prevailing global economic disparities, if African countries are to develop, they need trade concessions like Agoa, not bilateral reciprocal free trade agreements.
How can Agoa be made more beneficial to sub-Saharan Africa?
First, Agoa must be extended for at least 20 years. This will ensure predictability of the market access concession and boost confidence among investors of a sufficient time frame to recoup investments. Second, north African countries ought to be included in Agoa. This will extend Agoa to all African countries and support the trade integration of the continent through the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement.
Thirdly, Agoa should stop punishing investors for mistakes of governments. It is unfortunate that countries that fail to meet the Agoa eligibility requirements, which include governance and human rights standards, are suspended from the scheme. This penalises private firms that invest and trade and the people who are dependent on these firms for jobs. But the US is not likely to change the eligibility requirements.
Allafrica.com