Malawi
Cyclone Idai Regional Rapid Gender Analysis
CARE International is responding to the impact of Cyclone Idai and the associated floods in Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. As part of our response, CARE’s team in each of the countries is currently developing or is planning to develop a Rapid Gender Analysis (RGA) for the affected regions. An RGA provides information about the different needs, capacities and coping strategies of women, men, boys and girls in a crisis. It is built up progressively using a range of primary and secondary information to understand gender roles and relations and how they may change during a crisis. It provides practical programming and operational recommendations to meet the different needs of women, men, boys and girls of different ages, abilities and other contextually relevant forms of diversity and to ensure we ‘do no harm’. RGA uses the tools and approaches of Gender Analysis Frameworks – such as community mapping; focus group discussions, key informant interviews, safety audit tools and secondary data review - and adapts them to the tight time-frames, rapidly changing contexts and insecure environments that often characterise humanitarian interventions. Read More...
Pro-Resilience Action Program Baseline Study
Christian Aid and United Purpose are leading separate consortia implementing the ProResilience Action (Pro ACT) programme with funding from the European Commission. The programme aims to address existing food and nutrition security challenges among the poorest households under social cash transfer in seven districts by increasing their resilience to climaterelated stresses and shocks. The project will support interventions that foster great resilience to climatic shocks and diversification of livelihoods for vulnerable households and create synergies with the existing support to Social Cash Transfer Programme (SCTP). With this background, Christian Aid Malawi and United Purpose jointly commissioned the baseline study for the programme. The assessment was required to establish and verify baseline indicators related to the current food and nutritional status of the project beneficiaries and their ability to respond to climatic shocks. The baseline was conducted in the 7 districts of Nsanje, Zomba and Mulanje under the United Purpose led consortium and in Chikwawa, Mwanza, Neno, Mzimba North and Mzimba South under the Christian Aid led consortium The overall objective of the assignment was to carry out a baseline study for the “Pro-ACT programme” in order to determine the pre-project situation against major project indicators. This would provide a benchmark on which to formulate project targets and a basis for assessing project milestones during and impact after implementation. [83 pages] Read More...
Increasing Mitigation, Productivity and Adaptation through Crop-Recovery Techniques (IMPACT) II Project: Endline Summary Report
In the 2015 / 2016 season, Malawi experienced severe floods and droughts that occurred as a result of El Nino weather conditions. The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) -composed of the Government, UN agencies and NGOs- forecasted that a minimum of 6.5 million people, or 39 percent of the country's projected population of 16.8 million, would not be able to meet their annual food requirements during the 2016/2017 consumption period. Nsanje, Phalombe and Mulanje are some of the districts that were hit hardest. CARE Malawi implemented the IMPACT project from August 2016 through July 2017 to help the people from the three districts recover their agricultural-based livelihoods. After closure, USAID’s OFDA provided a new grant of US$1,125,519 for IMPACT to run from August 2017 to July 2018 in a bid to consolidate the gains achieved in the first phase and reach additional households affected by continued dry spells and the Fall Armyworms. CARE subcontracted ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency), an international NGO with experience and presence on the ground, to implement activities of the second phase in Phalombe and Mulanje (as they had in Phase I). This evaluation aimed to assess the design, performance and impact of the second phase. It used mixed methods to collect quantitative and qualitative data from 476 beneficiary households, 14 key persons and 8 fo¬cus group discussions with lead farmers, women and men, local committees and non-beneficiaries. Training of research assistants and pre-testing of study tools were done to ensure quality of the data collected. [48 pages] Read More...
Southern African Nutrition Initiative (SANI): Baseline Household Evaluation — Malawi
CARE is currently implementing the South Africa Nutrition Initiative (SANI) project in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. The goal of SANI is to improve the nutritional status of women of reproductive age and boys and girls under 5 years. This baseline study was conducted to obtain baseline values for the key SANI intervention areas in Dowa and Ntchisi Districts of Malawi. Eleven (11) key PMF indicators were able to be measured in order to set-up baseline values and establish achievable life of project targets for SANI in Malawi. (78 pages) Read More...
Creating spaces for dialogue: a cluster-randomized evaluation of CARE’s Community Score Card on health governance outcomes
Social accountability interventions such as CARE’s Community Score Card© show promise for improving sexual, reproductive, and maternal health outcomes. A key component of the intervention is creation of spaces where community members, healthcare workers, and district officials can safely interact and collaborate to improve health-related outcomes. Here, we evaluate the intervention’s effect on governance constructs such as power sharing and equity that are central to our theory of change. Read More...
Umodzi – Men, Women, Boys and Girls in Alliance to Achieve Gender Equality Final Narrative
Umodzi was a two-year action research project to test the effectiveness and scalability of a gender-synchronized, transformational approach that is integrated into existing school-based life skills (LS) and sexuality education programs for 10- to 19-year-old adolescent boys and girls. The purpose of Umodzi was to enhance the sustained empowerment of adolescent girls in rural communities in Central Malawi to exercise their sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights and ultimately achieve better life outcomes. The project used a comparative study to demonstrate evidence-based impact and also used a proof-of-concept component to inform process in real time. [20 [pages] Read More...
Shelter Project Performance Report
Between May and December 2016 (phase I), CARE and UNHCR provided safe, durable shelter to 531 families (1,917 people of concern) who had fled conflict in Mozambique. After starting with a transitional model using tarpaulins and blue gum poles, CARE worked with local skilled and unskilled labourers to upgrade the transitional models or create new semi-permanent shelters with mud brick walls and roofing comprised of iron sheets. The project also established kitchen gardens to support the nutrition and provide limited income generation for interested households. [12 pages] Read More...
Increasing Mitigation Productivity and Adaptation through Climate-smart Techniques
This report covers the cumulative achievements of the Increasing Mitigation Productivity and Adaptation through Climate-smart Techniques (IMPACT) project, from August 2016 to 31st July 2017 from the three targeted districts of Mulanje, Nsanje and Phalombe. Activities under the Agriculture and Food Security Sector focused on two subsectors: Improving household food security and Irrigation. [23 pages] Read More...
Emergency cash transfers, nutrition and livelihood assistance for chronically food insecure households in Malawi (2016-17)
In May 2016, the Government of Malawi (GoM), assessed 6.5 million people out of total population of 16.8M (39 percent) would not be able to meet their annual food requirements during the 2016/17 consumption period. Additionally, over 1.8 million people were in need of agricultural inputs to restore their livelihoods. About 31 per cent of the cultivated land was affected by the drought, of which 13 per cent was severely affected. Poor nutrition and increased mortality rates were of particular concern in 24 out of a total of 28 districts. Approximately 975,000 children aged 6-23 months and pregnant and lactating women were particularly at risk of food insecurity and malnutrition and requiring nutritional treatment.
The high level of food insecurity was due to two consecutive years of below average production of all key agricultural crops. In 2014/15 Malawi had the worst growing season for seven years, and this was followed by the worst floods in history in January 2015 and then widespread prolonged dry spells. Malawi was then severely impacted by one of the strongest El Niño events in 35 years. This climactic phenomenon has brought below average rainfall in the central and southern regions, and higher than normal rainfall in the north of the country. In response the food insecurity, the President of Malawi declared a state of disaster on 12 April 2016.
In order to address the significant challenges posed by El Niño in Malawi, CARE proposed a comprehensive cash transfer, nutrition and livelihoods response to reduce the vulnerability crisis-affected people, especially women, girls and boys in Salima. The project focuses on three immediate outcomes. First, the project will improve capacity of at-risk populations to meet basic needs and reduce negative coping strategies through cash transfers. Second, the project will focus on improving the nutritional status of women and children through awareness raising, demonstrations of best practices related to food preparing and provision of kitchen garden inputs. Finally, the project will increase the self-reliance of at risk population through the provision of seeds and tools as well as training on post-distribution harvest and storage techniques. [19 pages]
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The high level of food insecurity was due to two consecutive years of below average production of all key agricultural crops. In 2014/15 Malawi had the worst growing season for seven years, and this was followed by the worst floods in history in January 2015 and then widespread prolonged dry spells. Malawi was then severely impacted by one of the strongest El Niño events in 35 years. This climactic phenomenon has brought below average rainfall in the central and southern regions, and higher than normal rainfall in the north of the country. In response the food insecurity, the President of Malawi declared a state of disaster on 12 April 2016.
In order to address the significant challenges posed by El Niño in Malawi, CARE proposed a comprehensive cash transfer, nutrition and livelihoods response to reduce the vulnerability crisis-affected people, especially women, girls and boys in Salima. The project focuses on three immediate outcomes. First, the project will improve capacity of at-risk populations to meet basic needs and reduce negative coping strategies through cash transfers. Second, the project will focus on improving the nutritional status of women and children through awareness raising, demonstrations of best practices related to food preparing and provision of kitchen garden inputs. Finally, the project will increase the self-reliance of at risk population through the provision of seeds and tools as well as training on post-distribution harvest and storage techniques. [19 pages]
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