Malawi

May 2011 – The Southern African Development Community (SADC) received a € 1.7 million grant to undertake a study to improve knowledge on navigable waterways of the Shire-Zambezi for their reopening. This joint action between Malawi and Mozambique will improve information exchange and promote joint project planning and investment. The reopening of the waterways could increase the volume of transport of goods, trade and the exchange of services.

Photo courtesy of Nasa

Background: Malawi is one of the countries with the highest urbanisation rates. With a population of about 662,000 (2008), the city of Blantyre is the largest in Malawi. Between 1998 and 2008 the city experienced a population increase of about 32%1. The continued influx of people combined with decades of inadequate urban planning, has led to rapid spread of informal settlements with deplorable living conditions. The major problems include overcrowding, inadequate housing and lack of basic services, in particular water supply and sanitation.

December 2009 - The Center for Community Development (CCODE) received a €610,000 grant to improve the living conditions of a population of urban poor from the slums surrounding the City of Blantyre, Malawi, by facilitating access to water supply and sanitation in the form of a special revolving loan fund for water and sanitation investments for the urban poor; and to demonstrate and stimulate interest in the combination of water, sanitation and housing as an integrated approach to urban development in a context of rapid urbanization and the problems associated with urban slums.

January 2010 - The Government of Malawi received a € 2 million grant to will finance strengthen the water sector monitoring and evaluation (M&E) activities in Malawi. The purpose of this M&E project is to ensure the availability of reliable data and information in the water sector to track the achievement of development targets policies programmes and projects, and to facilitate decision-making in planning and managing the sector. The project aims to strengthen institutional capacity for water sector data and information generation, collection, storage and analysis.

May 2010 - Governments of Tanzania and Malawi received a €4 million grant to support the investment preparation for the development of Songwe River Basin. The goal of the project is to contribute to improved living conditions of basin population and socio-economic development in the two countries. The specific objectives are to prepare designs and joint investment projects for implementation and create an effective enabling environment for transboundary water resources management (TWRM) in the Songwe River Basin.

December 2013 - The Government of Malawi received a €1.8 million grant to help prepare a project to expand irrigated agriculture in the Lower Shire Valley. The project will help overcome the adverse effects of prolonged dry spells and frequent flooding, improve and spread agricultural production, as well as create employment opportunities through farming and irrigation ventures. The grant will be used to finance a feasibility study and preparatory activities to mobilize funding for an irrigation plan covering 21,000 hectares.