Action Aid rolls out K100m Climate Change Project

Action Aid Malawi will soon start mobilising women in Neno to enable them to fully participate in climate change activities where, among others, they will be advocating risk reduction in the communities they live in case of disasters.

Introducing the K102 million project to Neno district stakeholders, Action Aid project officer Landani Masingati said the project will be implemented in four districts where 1 440 women will be involved in Local Rights Programme activities including climate change issues.

“The project will assist communities to enhance food security and livelihood resilience for vulnerable people,” said Masingati.

He also said during the project implementation, policies, practices and budgets of government at local, provincial and national levels will be tackled in order to enhance the resilience of poor and vulnerable communities.

“We are planning to involve 1 440 women in disaster affected communities across 157 villages to become leaders in developing and implementing risk reduction plans and in some instances, they will be reviewing and analysing government budgets and policies related to resilient risk management,” he said.

Director of planning and development for Neno, McPherson Mwakhwawa said the project is a welcome development to the district because it will assist the women organisations in the district to come together and discuss issues which affect them due to climate change.

“This project will influence a number of women networks, forums and movements on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation to exchange knowledge and influence policy makers on the same,” he said.

Mwakhwawa, therefore, advised the organisation that there is need for frequent reporting to the district stakeholders for them to be updated on some of the findings gathered by the women forums to see how government could intervene at district level.

“One of the crucial areas which need not to be ignored is the issue of reporting to the district council on some of the outcomes during the project implementation so that the district council officials should also be fully aware of the development outcomes of the project,” concluded Mwakhwawa.

The three-year climate change project will be implemented in four districts of Neno, Rumphi, Chiradzulu and Machinga where it will target 28 group village heads in all the mentioned districts.