Paper long abstract:

The agriculture sector is the mainstay for livelihoods in Malawi, the majority being smallholder farmers. Smallholder farmers are among the most vulnerable groups to the impacts of climate change, a serious threat to food security and nutrition which also undermines poverty alleviation programmes. A four year programme (2017-2020) targeting highly vulnerable communities to climate change was implemented by LEAD in three extension planning areas in Eastern region of Malawi. With limited opportunities for income generation, climate change makes an already difficult situation worse for smallholder farmers through increased frequency of droughts, floods and in general through unreliable and poor seasonal rainfall distribution. This programme was designed to build socio and ecological resilience to climate change through several innovative climate smart interventions to improve land use practices, extension services, income generation, food security and nutrition. These included promoting drought tolerant and cover crops, integrating livestock into smallholder farming systems and promotion of village forest areas. Within 4 years, the adaptive capacity of the communities greatly improved against the base line. The positive impact outcomes and areas requiring improvement will be discussed.

Acknowledgement

LEAD implemented the programme as a subset of a wider programme by eight NGO’s in Malawi and Mozambique funded by NORAD through Development Fund of Norway.