| Project Detail |
Proposed Development Objective(s)
Development Objective(s) (From PAD)
Increase adoption of sustainable landscape management practices and improve watershed services in targeted
watersheds
Key Results
• 70% of target farmers adopting sustainable landscape management practice;
• 95,000ha of land area under sustainable landscape management practices;
• 50,000ha of land area showing an increase in Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and
the Land Surface Water Index (LSWI), correcting for short-term climate effects20;
• 42,000 people gaining access to water for productive use
• 50% of target farmers benefiting from an increase in production sold to the markets and/or an
increase in income from marketed products
D. Project Description
Component 1 – Scaling up Landscape Restoration (US$53 million)
13. This component aims to scale up landscape restoration interventions in the middle and upper Shire River
Basin while enhancing the livelihoods of small-holder farming communities, addressing climate change
vulnerabilities and improving and/or preserving the carbon sequestration capacity of the watershed.
Specifically, the component will finance (i) performance-based grants for restoration of approximately 95,000
ha of degraded landscapes in the middle and upper Shire; (ii) matching grants for 200 farmer groups and 60
agri-enterprises to enhance agricultural-based livelihoods and boost household incomes; (iii) advisory services
and capacity building on sustainable landscape management practices, including climate smart agriculture
practices and silvicultural techniques, targeting approximately 15,000 people and comprising of farmers, agri-entrepreneurs, private tree growers and associations of smallholder tree growers, catchment management
committees (CMCs), village natural resource management committees (VNRMCs) and district extension
workers; (iv) a social marketing campaign to influence farmer behavior with respect to adoption of sustainable
landscape management practices; (v) support to undertake local-level participatory land-use planning, land
demarcation, adjudication and registration of 20,000 ha of land in the target area to provide security of tenure
for approximately 16,000 small-holder farmers.
Component 2 – Improving Watershed Services (US$82 million)
14. This component aims to maximize the benefits people and communities obtain from managing
watersheds sustainably, as a basis for developing institutional and financing mechanisms needed to sustain
restoration activities beyond the project period. The project will invest in improving watershed services,
focusing primarily on provisioning services and regulating services, and to some extent cultural, recreation and
amenity services, given that Malawi’s most iconic national parks and wildlife reserves are located in the Shire
River basin. More specifically, the component will finance (i) performance-based grants to selected watershed
management institutions to implement their institutional development plans aimed at improving watershed
services; (ii) technical assistance and the initial capital required to establish a pilot market-based mechanism
for the provision and maintenance of selected watershed services; and (iii) a package of enabling
infrastructure and climate information services to maximize the livelihood benefits from improved watersheds,
and to enhance the resilience of both the farming community and the watershed.
15. Enabling infrastructure investments will include (a) development of 38 multipurpose water source
infrastructure (i.e. 10 small dams, 20 rain water harvesting structures and 8 high yielding boreholes etc) and
associated conveyance infrastructure to increase access to water for multi-purpose use for approximately
42,000 people (of which 50 percent women), while at the same time protecting people from the destructive
impacts of water (floods); and (b) last-mile infrastructure to support small-holder producer groups to improve
productivity, add value to their produce and gain access to markets, including construction of 10 small-medium
scale irrigation systems to provide irrigation services on approximately 2,400 ha of cropland and benefiting
approximately 5,000 farmers; construction of rural feeder roads, bridges and market centers to improve access
to markets; and potable water for value addition, where required.
16. To improve climate information services, the component will finance competitive grants to private sector
innovators to develop and market a suite of hydrological, weather and climate products and services to enable
climate-informed decision-making by different watershed users (including small holder farmers and agrienterprises, energy and water utilities, dam operators, insurance companies etc) using data from the existing
and/or improved ground-based observation network managed by both the Department of Climate Change and
Meteorological Services (DCCMS) and NWRA, and supplemented as necessary with other sources (e.g. satellitebased data). At least one of the product/services developed will be an agro-weather service, capable of serving
at least 8,000 farmers with agro-weather information services.
Component 3 –Technical and Project Management Support (US$25 million)
17. This component aims to strengthen MoAIWD’s capacity to implement the proposed project (and
subsequent projects in the series) in partnership with other line ministries, departments, and agencies, and to
monitor and evaluate its development impact. The component will finance (i) technical assistance for
preparation of future phases of the project, including delineation of priority (hotspot) catchments in Linthipe,
Bua and Dwangwa river basins; forming CMCs, preparing catchment managemet plans and micro-catchment plans; and carrying out feasibility studies and engineering designs for enabling infrastructure investments
identified in the catchmemt management plans; (ii) technical assistance and capacity building on biophysical
and ecological monitoring to track changes in the targeted landscapes as a result of project interventions; (iii)
impact evaluations to build the evidence-base to inform future projects in the SoP; (iv) project management
support to the multi-sectoral technical team on project management, financial management, procurement,
monitoring and evaluation, and environmental and social standards implementation; and (iii) incremental
operating costs associated with day-to-day management of the project and for coordination with different
sectoral agencies/departments at national, district and local levels. |
