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Capacity Needs Assessment (CNA) towards DRE promotion in Malawi

Results of the assessment and of the prioritization workshop

The Capacity Needs Assessment (CNA) has been conducted from 1-15 December 2011 under FAO’s Sida-funded country level intervention on the promotion of decent rural employment (DRE) in Malawi and Tanzania. It aimed at looking into the enabling environment for gender-equitable decent rural employment (DRE) promotion in Malawi and at the existing network of DRE-related stakeholders in order to assess existing capacities and gaps. The assessment has supported a prioritization exercise conducted together with national stakeholders to identify short term (up to 1 year) as well as medium-term (1-3 years) capacity development priorities. The assessment has been seen as much important as the “product” of the assessment, as well as a learning and relationship building opportunity. It will also serve as a reference and guiding tool for all subsequent capacity building activities to be carried out under the Sida-funded Integrated Country Approach (ICA) intervention in the country.

The CNA with key national ARD stakeholders indicated that their capacities for an integrated approach towards DRE promotion at policy, knowledge and implementation level are limited, however, the degree of this depends on the individual stakeholder’s are of work and mandate. There are many factors that obstruct a better integration of DRE aspects into policy processes, knowledge generation and dissemination, fostering of intra-institutional partnerships, and implementation of ARD programmes and plans, such as limited human and/or financial resources, weak technical capacities of staff on DRE, limited information flow (horizontal and vertical) among and within respective institutions, collaboration gaps between decentralised offices (district level) and central government (national), as well as limited knowledge on strategic integration of DRE into national programmes and implementation plans, including M&E. The assessment also demonstrated that for an integrated and sustainable promotion of DRE into national ARD processes at all levels, all four assessed capacities need to be strengthened.

Taking part in the FAO Capacity Needs Assessment (CNA) were governmental institutions, civil society organisations (CSOs), research institutes, and the donor community.1

1. Policy development and implementation capacity

Overall question: Do relevant stakeholders have the capacity to formulate and implement Agricultural and Rural Development (ARD), Food Security (FS) as well as growth and poverty reduction or labour/social protection policies and strategies which adequately address gender-equitable DRE? (DRE promotion includes general rural employment and decent work aspects, gender-related aspects, youth employment and child labour-related issues). (Authorities concerned were line ministries and policy

1 CNA in Malawi comprised of twenty-seven (27) individual and group discussions with representatives of the Ministry of

Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MOAIWD); the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training (MOLVT); Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MOLGRD); the Ministry of Development Planning and Cooperation (MODPC); the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports (MOYDS); the Ministry of Gender, Child Development and Community Development (MOGCCD); the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC); the National Smallholder Farmers' Association of Malawi (NASFAM); the Civil Society Agriculture Network (CISANET); the Development from People to People (DAPP) in Malawi; the Delegation of the European Union to Malawi; the World Bank Malawi; IFPRI Malawi; the Bunda College; the Donor Community on Agriculture and Food Security (DCAFS); ILO Malawi, UNDP Malawi, UNCDF Malawi; WFP Malawi; and FAO Malawi. One focus group discussion was held with representatives of the Centre for Youth Empowerment and Education (CYECE) and The Technical, Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training Authority (TEVETA).

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makers; the focus was on the capacity of the system/country and not on the capacities of a single institution or individual) General assessment:

The Malawi Vision 20202 is a policy framework that sets out a long-term development perspective for Malawi. It emphasizes long term strategic thinking, shared vision and visionary leadership, participation by the population, strategic management and national learning. The role of employment, including rural employment, for the achievement of the set goals of the Vision is tackled throughout the document. Particularly in Chapters 6 and 9 on food security and nutrition, and fair and equitable distribution of income, specifically in its challenges and strategic options on the reduction of post-harvest losses, promotion of non-farm income generating activities and increase of rural employment opportunities,

improvement of smallholder agriculture, marketing systems, rural transport and access to land as well as reduction of unemployment and promotion of gender equality. Specific provisions include the promotion of off-farm income generating activities and increase of rural employment opportunities and encouragement of increased commercial farming to enhance employment in agriculture as well as growth of small-scale enterprises such as food processing. Specifically, in chapter 9, one of the key strategic challenges is reduction of unemployment with strategic options aiming to encourage increased commercial farming to enhance employment in agriculture and to create a conducive climate to attract private investment in labour intensive technology industries. However, on agricultural development in Chapter 3 on the achievement of sustainable economic growth and development employment is not directly mentioned, but indirectly through provision such as increased access to land by smallholder farmers, increased access to credit and farm inputs and improvement of agricultural technology. In general, the Malawi Vision 2020 recognizes, directly or indirectly, the importance of employment for a long-term sustainable development of the country. However, it does not have an explicit employment-centred development vision that would strategically aim to stimulate long-term socio-economic growth through it.

The Second Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS II 2011/12-2015/16), which was approved by the Government in April 2012, is the overarching operational medium-term strategy for Malawi.3 The Ministry of Development Planning and Cooperation (MDPC) is responsible for its development as well as implementation coordination and facilitation. The Strategy is organized into six thematic areas: (i) sustainable economic growth; (ii) social development; (iii) social support and disaster risk management; (iv) infrastructure development; (v) improved governance and; (vi) cross-cutting issues of gender and capacity development. Compared to the MGDS I, progress has been made as the MGDS II explicitly recognizes labour and employment as an important issue listing it a sub-theme, along with agriculture and rural development, under the sustainable economic growth thematic area. The sub-theme on labour and employment seeks to achieve, among others, increased labour productivity, increased gainful and decent employment for all, and elimination of worst forms of child labour.4

2 The Vision 2020 was launched by the Government of Malawi on 31

st March 1998.

3 The MGDS II is the third national development strategy, following the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy (MPRS) and the

MGDS I. 4 Key strategies to achieve the said outcomes include: establishing an effective and efficient labour market information system

(LMIS); promoting occupational safety and health (OSH); integrating child labour issues into development initiatives and interventions; reviewing, harmonizing and enforcing legislation on child labour; reducing all forms of labour market

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However, despite this progression, the sub-theme (nor the Strategy as a whole) does not address rural employment, youth employment or employment in the informal economy, which represents a significant conceptual and strategic gap, especially considering that the vast majority of the population is living in rural areas, is predominantly employed in agriculture as subsistence farmers and is of young age. However, the strategy recognizes the role of youth as the future and growing national labour force and emphasizes the need to address the needs of youth, including the enhancement of effective youth participation in economic activities. Thus, youth employment is indirectly tackled in sub-theme 5 “ Youth development and empowerment” within theme 2 “Social development”, in terms of improvement of youth’s technical, vocational, entrepreneurial and life skills and increased access to credit (i.e. YEDF). Albeit, rural youth are not mentioned, nor specific rural-related provisions provided. Child labour is addressed both in the sub-theme on ‘’Child Development’’ of the same Strategy theme as well as in the sub-theme on ‘’Labour and Employment’’. The latter sub-theme explicitly aims at the elimination of the worst forms of child labour as a medium-term expected outcome by integrating child labour issues into development initiatives and interventions and reviewing,

harmonizing and enforcing existing legislation on child labour. The same sub-theme “ Labour and Employment” recognizes the importance of employment as a cross-cutting issue. However, the adequate integration of employment/labour issues is not evident from the descriptions of the other themes and key priority areas of the Strategy, not even those focusing specifically on rural development and agriculture. For example, the key priority area “Integrated Rural Development” which aims at resuscitating rural economies and transforming them into potential drivers of economic growth and development, is mentioning only improved incomes in general but not rural employment as one of the drivers for obtaining them. One of the mid-level goals of the Strategy is to ensure productive and decent employment for better standards of living for the Malawi population. However, the Strategy does not explicitly address rural employment neither at the outcomes or key strategic actions level. The Strategy does recognise the importance of agriculture in respect to overall national economic growth and food security, acknowledging that the vast majority of the national work force (80%) is employed in this sector. However, employment in the agricultural sector (Sub-theme 1 on Agriculture) is not addressed explicitly despite the majority of rural population working in agriculture as subsistence farmers or in casual/seasonal working arrangements

The draft National Agricultural Policy (NAP, 2011-2016)5 aims to contribute to the attainment of national food security, poverty reduction and national development objectives as outlined in the MGDS I. Specifically, the NAP is geared towards enhancing agricultural production and productivity, and related value chains in order to internalize sustainable utilization and conservation of the country’s genetic resources to meet the needs of the immediate to medium terms as well as those of future generations. The draft NAP has 7 thematic areas: i) inputs use and markets, ii) agricultural production, iii) food and nutrition security, iv) agricultural markets development, v) gender, HIV and AIDS and agricultural development, vi) climate change and

discrimination; promoting skills development; establishing a robust database of labour and employment statistics, and finally, promoting labour administration systems. 5 The policy is waiting for cabinet approval; it is, therefore, not yet known when it will become operational.

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environment, and vii) bio-fuels and agricultural development. In terms of agricultural production and development as well as gender equality, the Policy recognizes the importance of smallholder farmers who comprise the majority of the rural and agricultural workforce in Malawi. Policy actions related to employment and income generation include: development of programmes that reduce dependency on rain-fed agriculture; promotion of the production of high value crops amongst smallholder and estate farmers; provision of support to vulnerable households with production enhancing technologies; strengthening farmer organizations; and integration of smallholder farmers into domestic and international markets. The policy will contribute to rural employment through skills training and helping smallholders with the identification of markets for their produce. However, there is not any specific focus on employment (employment is not explicitly addressed in the NAP, but indirectly indicated as the outcome of increased production and incomes of the farmers and inclusion of farmers into agro value chains) nor are employment issues mentioned among the crosscutting issues. Gender is mentioned instead and the NAP recognizes among its Guiding Principles the need for gender equality as a fundamental value in the provision of agricultural services to ensure equal participation of all gender categories.

The National Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy (NFAP 2001) is currently being reviewed6 by the

MOAIWD’s Fisheries Department. The main changes are supposed to include a stronger food

security focus, the inclusion of gender, HIV and AIDS, and climate change as crosscutting issues

and the inclusion of a fishery safety section. The intention was also to include CL issues but this

was then eliminated in the end. There has been a terminology change in the Policy from

fishermen to fisher, since there is the perception of a stronger participation of women.

The Malawi Agricultural Sector Wide Approach (ASWAp 2011-2015) was endorsed by the GoM in August 2010 and operates as Malawi’s prioritized and harmonized agricultural development plan for achieving agricultural growth and poverty alleviation goals of the MGDS and MGDS II.7 As such aims at supporting priority activities in the agricultural sector to improve food and nutrition security, increase agricultural productivity and enhance the contribution of agro-processing to economic growth. ASWAp has three focus areas: a) food security and risk management, b) agri-business and market development and c) sustainable land and water management; as well as two key-support services: a) technology generation and dissemination and b) institutional strengthening and capacity building. Whilst gender equality and HIV and AIDS are identified as the cross-cutting issues within the document. There are some employment/labour-related elements present in the ASWAp, however, its focus is primarily on the agricultural production side. The ASWAp is lacking an integrated approach for strategic decent rural employment promotion and building symbiotic linkages between labour/employment, food security and agricultural production.

6 According to the MOAIWD’s Fisheries Department, the NFAP is supposed to be reviewed every five years.

7 The implementation and management of the ASWAp aims to support the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development

Programme (CAADP) Compact Agreement which was signed by the Government of Malawi (GoM) in April 2010, The ultimate goal of the CAADP process in Malawi is to improve agricultural development through a coherent long-term framework that guides the planning and implementation of priority development and investment areas of the national agricultural development and food security strategy. Among other, it will help to identify startegic options and sources of pro-poor growth for the agricultural sector through the increase of planned 6% average growth rate which will contribute to the increase of agricultural productivity, food and nutrition security and agricultural incomes of rural households.

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The Malawi Agricultural Development Programme (ADP) is the ASWAp precedesor. The first level consultation with the cabinet was done in 2009, and in 2011 the mid-term review carried out by the World Bank recommended its transition to the ASWAp. The aim is to accelerate agricultural growth through efficient resource allocation and development strategy. It recognises that the formal agricultural sector offers limited employment opportunities, especially for women, and is shrinking under fiscal pressures and liberalization, whilst the informal sector is correspondingly gaining in importance. However, stimulation of employment in the agricultural sector is stated as paramount for setting of the outmigration of rural population. The ADP emphasizes indirectly the employment benefits through increased agricultural production and diversification of income generation for smallholders.

The National Employment and Labour Policy (NELP 2011-2016), which is currently waiting for the Cabinet approval, aims to stimulate the creation of full, free decent and productive employment, to reduce unemployment, underemployment and enhance labour productivity. It has 12 policies areas which include: rural-urban migration; employment in the agriculture sector; gender and employment; youth employment, HIV and AIDS and the workplace, and micro, small, and medium enterprises. The policy covers most of the relevant areas, however, it should be highlighted that a rural and pro-poor sensitive focus is missing, e.g. the specific problematic of YE in rural areas are not stated etc. Youth employment and gender and employment are identified as separate policy areas, whereby child labour is treated within the policy area on Labour administration and labour standards.

The Child Labour National Action Plan (NAP 2011-2016), was launched in May 2011 and its goal is to eliminate the worst forms of child labour by 2016. The NAP has 7 priorities: development and improvement of the policy and legislative framework; building the capacity of the education sector; creating awareness on child labour; bridging the information gap in child labour; building the institutional and technical capacity of service providers; provision of services to withdrawn and prevented children to enable them achieve their education objectives; and mitigate the effects of HIV and AIDS on working and at risk children. The NAP highlights that the wast majority of children aged between 5-14 years engaged in economic activities arbased in rural areas and recognizes the severity of the CL prevalence in agriculture with the majority of child labourers working in this sector. However, the Plan does not explicitly address this particular category of child labourers in its strategic framework’s interventions aside Output 1.1.2 of the Startegic Objective 1 aiming at the development of agriculture policies that improve food security for the vulnerable families. MOAIWD is not stated among the institutional framework setup which is regarded as a limitation.

The National Youth Policy (NYP 2007) has the overall goal of providing a framework which guides youth development and implementation of all youth programmes. Its key focal areas are: education; science, technology and environment; health and nutrition; social services, recreation, sport and culture; youth participation and leadership; and youth economic empowerment. Owing to the fact that Malawi’s population is predominantly young, especially in rural areas, the NYP recognizes the need for reduction of youth unemployment and underemployment. However, despite this, the policy is not rural/urban sensitive and does not provide specific strategies to specifically tackle rural youth employment issues. The overall objective of the key focal area on youth economic empowerment is to improve socio-economic status of youth through increased incomes through creation of a conducive environment for youth employment both in the formal and informal economy, with a strong emphasis on gender equality.

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The National Gender Policy (NGP 2007-2011) is in the final stage of review at cabinet level. The

Policy is focusing on the empowerment of women, i.e. social (education, health); economic

(capacity to engage in non-traditional economic activities); and political (participation of women

in decision making positions, including politics). The Policy is complemented by an action plan,

and specifically in relation to employment, provides strategies that will increase women’s

economic rights, resources and opportunities; create a favourable environment for equal

employment opportunities and benefits for women, men, girls and boys; and integrate gender

issues into overall national development strategies and support from development partners. In

line with the Policy, the Gender Equality Bill emphasizes on women’s rights, including the

economic empowerment of women.

The Local Government Act (1998) of the MOLGRD has been amended twice, in 2001 and 2010,

and a more comprehensive revision is still needed. One of its elements is to foster the

participation of youth at district level. In 1998 the Decentralization Policy with its 10 years

implementation plan was developed and it guides the relationship with the district councils

(consisting of the 5 interest groups: youth, women, CSOs, representations of farmers, and

people with disabilities). The Policy has been also amended in 2001 and 2010 on a rather ad-hoc

basis, hence, a more comprehensive revision is needed.

Overall assessment of the policy functional capacity: Policy capacities of the Malawi national system to promote DRE and efficiently integrate its aspects into the respective policy frameworks are considered to be only partially developed. The awareness on the importance of DRE varies from national institution to institution, according to their mandate and importance of employment for its achievement. In general, there is recognition (explicit or implicit) that employment is central for ARD in terms of economic growth and ensuring its sustainability, i.e. retaining young people in the agricultural sector. However, this recognition has yet to be fully translated into an integrated approach for the promotion of DRE in national ARD relevant policy frameworks, which would build on the four pillars of the ILO Decent Work Agenda8. In major national development strategies employment is an indirect effect of growth and value-addition, accomplished through increased productivity. However, there is a lack of recognition of strategic correlation between labour productivity/employment and agricultural productivity, as well as the impact of those on increased food security and poverty reduction. The governmental institutions (such as MOAIWD and MOL) tend to adhere strictly to their mandates and do not seize the potential of addressing issues under their respective mandates in an inter-disciplinary manner. The OPC9 and

8 The ILO Decent Work Agenda comprises of four pillars: i) employment generation and enterprise development, ii) social

protection, iii) rights at work, and iv) social dialogue. 9 The OPC is responsible for providing advice and support to the President and Cabinet as well as providing oversight leadership

in the Public Service which aims to be productive, professional, results oriented, affordable and highly motivated. The OPC derives its mandate from the Constitution of Malawi, the Public Service Act and other legal instruments in order to achieve the provision of advice to the President on policy matters and support to the Cabinet, ensure effective administration, change management and capacity development of the Public Service provision of strategic leadership in development of Government policies and programmes and ensure implementation through monitoring and evaluation, and guide public entities in developing/formulating Government strategic priorities, practices and implementation of programmes. The Policy and Planning Department of OPC works aims to harmonise national policies so that their respective issues are covered in an integrated manner also in other related policies, i.e. the National Employment and Labour Policy should also address some issues deriving

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MODPC10, as the umbrella institutions in terms of national policy development, support a stronger and systematic integrated approach for DRE in both ARD- and employment-related policy frameworks, however, also within these two institutions the technical and operational capacities to stimulate and facilitate these processes are limited. The OPC is the Government’s body overseeing the formulation and implementation of policies in Malawi. The OPC expressed an important notion, namely that most public employees assume that for engaging in issues related to employment in agriculture or rural economy in general, there is no requirements for the development of their skills as it is required, for instance, in the urban-based labour market. This is also linked to the fact that in Malawi agriculture was/is not considered a form of rural employment and that stimulation of on-farm employment has to stem from enhancement of producers’ skills. However, OPC emphasized that this can be changed through formulation of policies which will stimulate both on- and off-farm agricultural activities in the future through diversification of the activities in agriculture. In respect to advocacy capacity for policy formulation at the governmental level, there is evidence of both horizontal and vertical flow of policy-related information and recommendations. Within MOAIWD, for example, there is a direct bottom-up stream of policy advocacy from DADO’s (District Agriculture Development Offices) to the highest levels, i.e. the Minister. DADO’s prepare policy papers which are presented to the Ministry policy department and are considered as an important policy lobbying mechanism. MOAIWD regards as very important the trickling down of policy-related information to farmers and in order to facilitate this MOAIWD, through DADO’s, supports district agriculture committees, which consist of a broad number of stakeholders, including representatives from the government and smallholder farmers themselves, and works on the establishment of village stakeholder committees within the village district committees. One of the major challenges is to translate policies into legislation and to implement, monitor and evaluate them timely and adequately. In general, the policy implementation is rather weak, and the smallholders are still the last actors to benefit in the chain. In respect to the advocacy capacity for policy formulation of CSOs vis-à-vis the Government, the CSOs such as CISANET and NASFAM have a solid understanding of the importance of DRE. However, their advocacy power for policy formulation vis-à-vis governmental institutions needs strengthening in terms of policy advocacy trainings and establishment of functional inter-institutional linkages. The same challenge was expressed by the Bunda College who has a great capacity to provide policy advice in general, but not on DRE particularly. In addition, they do not have institutional linkages to channel it to relevant stakeholders. From the CSO perspective on youth policies, the popularization of policies concerning youth has been stressed out as a challenge, also because the National Youth Policy is being revised already for 6 years and lies since 3 years at the cabinet level.

from the Youth Policy by providing guidance and coordination mechanisms of its activities. Thus the Policy and Planning Department is seen as an internal consultancy entity which provides concrete inputs, advises other ministries (without being able to force them to conform) and defines policy-taskforce members. There are draft guidelines on policy formulation but still in draft and cannot be shared outside. Under the responsibility of the ministries policy research is carried out. Monitoring and evaluation is done in an informal way, while almost all of the OPCs advice is taken into account, however, the OPC does not systematically monitor the uptake of the advice given. 10

The MODPC is Malawi Government's main planning agency responsible for national economic and development planning, and monitoring and evaluation of socio-economic issues in the country. Its main mandate is to provide professional advice and technical support to Government and the public on economic and social policy development and management so as to achieve faster and sustainable development. The Ministry also coordinates the implementation and review of the national policy development agenda. The ministry itself addresses issues related to employment indirectly, mainly through its focus on poverty reduction and social protection in terms of business agriculture, self-employment and microfinance.

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Regarding the age and gender disaggregated data (AGDD), there is a consensus across all governmental institutions that they need to strengthen their capacities in AGDD for policy planning/preparation/analysis.

FAO, in collaboration with the ILO and other UN partners, could directly support national capacities to formulate and implement employment-enhancing ARD policies. National stakeholders manifested big interest and a strong willingness to strengthen their policy and normative capacity on DRE integration and welcomed FAO’s technical support on this.

2. Knowledge capacity

Overall question: Is there a general awareness and a shared vision among agricultural and labour stakeholders of RE&DW issues and of their centrality for ARD, FS and poverty reduction? Do stakeholders have the capacity to access and/or develop a comprehensive RE&DW qualitative and quantitative analysis which is disaggregated by women/men; location urban/rural and age (adult/young)? Do they have the capacity to use this analysis to justify ARD and national development priorities to be employment centred, particularly in areas of poverty reduction, food security, gender equality and achievement of the MDGs?

General assessment:

Based on the interviews conducted, and documents analyzed, the stakeholders do not have yet

the adequate awareness and knowledge about specific DRE issues, including good practices on

how to ensure DW standards in rural areas. There is not yet a shared understanding, among

both agricultural and labour stakeholders, of what decent work means in rural settings, informal

rural economy and subsistence agriculture, and how to apply it in these settings. Staff shortage

and staff technical capacities are an issue in this respect. For example, MOLVT does not have the

capacity to do human resources planning, i.e. labour economists are missing in the ministry

already for 2 years. The stakeholders (particularly MOLVT) emphasised that it would be very

important to sensitivise the employers on DW principles, however, asserted also that this is a

challenge, especially in the informal context. In this respect, there should be an increased focus

on social protection (particularly on social security and social safety nets). MOAIWD emphasized

the need to expand their knowledge on agricultural employment and its inter-linkages with

agricultural production, and highlighted that the ministry’s technical capacities on employment-

related issues are still very weak. Specifically, there is limited knowledge on YE and CL and it

would be important to integrate labour/employment issues at the planning level and in

collaboration with NSO11. Both MOIWD and MOLVT emphasized the importance of

strengthening collaboration with each other and other agriculture and labour stakeholders in

order to share and produce information and knowledge on agricultural employment in an inter-

disciplinary and integrated manner.

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For example also in collaboration with the NSO which has 3 officers based in MOAIWD.

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Most of the stakeholders emphasised that the knowledge on gender and age disaggregated data

(GADD) is limited or lacking, this is due to either staff shortage or staff technical capacities, or a

combination of the two. MOAIWD specified that in terms of gender there is a weak capacity at

the planning level, while extension trainers have a good uptake of capacities as they are being

trained on it. Instead MoAIWD has a gender focal point with strong involvement in extension

issues.

Vice versa, MOGCCD emphasized that agriculture is a new area in the ministries’ strategic plan

and that the ministry needs technical support on better integration of agricultural

employment/income generating activities for women, like promotion of cash crops for women

and agribusinesses. MOLVT highlighted the importance of rural women’s economic

empowerment but the ministry needs more capacitation of relevant staff on gender and

agricultural/rural employment.

In respect to child labour, the MOLVT emphasised that the level of knowledge on child labour related issues varies from district to district. In some districts like Mchinji, Mzimba , Kasungu and Rumphi12, the District Labour Officers (DLOs) are more knowledgeable about CL issues than in others. This is also due to concentrated CD activities on CL in and around these districts. In general, they said, that DLOs who are in touch with CL prevention and reduction projects are more knowledgeable and proactive. However, these projects have unfortunately a limited geographical coverage and lifespan. Further sensitisation on CL prevention and reduction at all levels, including community level, would be needed. Main agricultural stakeholders in specifically questioned the concepts of decent work/child labour and indicated the need for clearer definitions on child labour in the agricultural sector and rural economy in general.

Besides MOAIWD’s extension services technical support provision to producers, TEVETA and certain CBO’s such as NASFAM are providing informal, formal and public sector trainings to the rural population, with attention to age13 (TEVETA) and gender equality in terms of trainees participation. TEVETA emphasised that they provide trainings on apprenticeship skills and small-scale enterprises development to vulnerable youths who mostly work in the informal sector and ensures that Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) measures are applied through the start-up kits and tools used in all programmes. Furthermore, TEVETA staff is quite informed about CL prevention as well as NASFAM’s who developed a frontline Staff manual on CL that has been distributed to all NASFAM frontline staff and MOAIWD’s extension officers.

3. Partnering capacity

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These districts have regular funding from donors hence the DLOs are proactive in Child labour issues. 13

Age equality is perceived as important by NASFAM and they will endeavour to accomplish it in the future

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Overall question: Do stakeholders responsible for ARD, RE and FS policy, strategy and programme formulation have the capacity to establish effective partnerships for RE&DW promotion? (Authorities concerned here were line ministries and FAO and other UN agencies as primary stakeholders and other ministries and development partners as secondary audience, NGOs, CSOs, etc.) General assessment

Though Malawi has major national policy documents providing the guideline for ARD, these yet have to be translated into a shared vision that would stimulate coordinated intra-governmental plans for action on DRE promotion. There is a certain degree of established collaboration among ministries with similar mandates and complementary areas of competence. For example, the MOL’s Monitoring and Evaluation Department works together with NSO on the annual Welfare Monitoring Survey, specifically on labour indicators, and MOIWD collaborates with the NSO on agriculture-related data surveys and censuses14, however, the cross-linking partnership between MOL-MOAIWD and NSO on the cross-cutting issues such as employment in agriculture has yet to be established. It has been emphasized during the interviews that although both ASWAp and DWCP are reporting towards the realization of the MGDS II, there are weak or none concrete linkages between them and that this should be strengthened.

In general, collaboration on DRE is less pronounced among agriculture and labour stakeholders.

Regarding collaboration between MOL and MOAIWD, it has been emphasized that it needs to be

strengthened, especially at the policy level; one of new collaboration platforms for partnership

is the LMIS (currently being developed by MOL), and/or the appointment of labour inspectors in

the ministry15. With the MOL there are partnerships links mostly through District Agriculture.

Development Offices (DADOs), which provides a platform for the two ministries to consult with

each other as needed. MOL (Child Labour Unit) also collaborated with the MGCDDC on a child

labour prevention intervention16 in 2008, funded by UNICEF. This collaboration phased out due

to lack of resources. There is some collaboration with MOL and MOIWD on CL for the tobacco

and tea industries. In general, all ministries collaborate with the MoFDP and the OPC to ensure

that all policies produced by the respective institution comply with the national policy

framework and MGDS II. However, in terms of partnering the MOFDP does not provide a strong

and strategic inter-institutional platform that would enable effective mainstreaming of certain

issues, such as DRE, into all relevant policy documents and later on also ensure cooperation at

the strategic and programmatic implementation level.

Collaboration among governmental institutions as well as governmental institutions and CSOs is more strongly pronounced at the district level. The MOLGRD has a strong collaboration with other ministries at district level, and weak at national level. Because of this weak collaboration, there is a lot of duplication and need is required to rationalize the resources. There are good working relationships with all ministries that adopted the SWAPs (Education, Agriculture,

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There are 3 NSO officers based in the MOAIWD, which has also 200 enumerators. 15

The Labour Commissioner has the power to appoint labour inspectors in all governmental institutions, including MOIT and LGAs. 16

The intervention hat had a limited geographical coverage (5 districts in the Northern Region).

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Health, etc.), though the involvement of the MoLGRD could be strengthened. For example, MoLGRD17 is coordinating a “Sector Devolution Task team” which supervises the decentralization of resources, while the ministries’ Department of Public Management provides training to district commissioners depending on the thematic areas. In parallel, the district councils are doing their own needs assessments and communicate these findings to specific ministries. The collaboration with MOAIWD is mainly at the district level, stemming from the fact that all MoAIWD’s18 projects have to be approved by the district commissioner. MLVT, MoAIWD and the MoLGDR all state to have a viable cooperation through the district committees. They state to engage very limitedly in intra-governmental cooperation at the national level, as e.g. during policy making processes which has strong disadvantages.

Both MOIWD and MOL have appointed a DRE focal point, besides the MOYDS, however, their

cooperation at the ministerial level is limited and needs to be strengthened and the long-term

partnering ties among these institutions need yet to be established.

Ministerial collaboration with research/academic institutions exists (e.g. MOAIWD and IFPRI

Malawi and MOL and Chancellor College), however, it is strictly limited to the mandates of the

respective ministry, resulting in non-coverage of cross-sectoral issues, such as DRE, into their

research work and projects. IFPRI Malawi emphasized the importance of integrating to a greater

extent employment into their collaborative work with MOAIWD, specifically in the Strategic

Masterplan for Agricultural Statistics which IFPRI is developing in collaboration with NSO and

MOIWD. Employment could be also included into IFPRI’s research on multidimensional poverty

measurement.

Regarding the CSO’s, particularly NASFAM and CISANET, they collaborate with the GoM at different levels, depending on the organization. NASFAM19 has a very well established collaboration with MOAIWD at the district level20 and is a member of different committees including Gender and HIV & AIDS Strategy in Agriculture and the National Action Plan committee. However, NASFAM emphasized that in terms of policy advocacy and collaboration at policy level, the collaboration with relevant GoM institutions has to be strengthened. CISANET21 in contrary partners with the GoM, specifically with MOIWD and MOF, predominantly at the policy level, however, the collaboration on the current ASWAp was not as fruitful as it was in the case of its predecessor ADP. The linkage to policy makers is not always productive.

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Besides the MOLGRD provides at local level primary support and advice to the rural development programmes and is responsible for the definition of technical guidelines for programmes implementation. In collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works and the Ministry of Finance, MOLGRD is involved in the Local Development Fund. 18

Mainly in respect to ASWAP and the Farm Subsidies Programme. 19

NASFAM, founded in 1997, is the largest independent, smallholder-owned membership organization in Malawi serving over 100,000 members. It aims to improve the lives of smallholder farmers and promotes farming as a business, producing economic and social benefits for its members, their communities and the country.

20 NASFAM developed a Frontline Staff Manual on CL which has been distributed to all NASFAM frontline staff and MOAIWD’s

extension officers. 21

CISANET is a policy advocacy organisation, working on agriculture and food security policy issues affecting not only the smallholder farmers but generally the poor people and their livelihoods.

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The participating international organizations have different approaches to collaboration. The majority of them works together with both the GoM and the CSOs, mainly at policy and implementation level. However, partnerships at policy level are more pronounced. However, the linkage between collaboration at policy, knowledge sharing/generation and implementation levels should be strengthened. WFP cooperates with MOIWD, MOFDP and FAO on the “Work for food”22 and ‘’P4P progamme’’23 which is a pilot trial of a new and innovative collaboration which provides for income generation smallholders, with emphasis on women producers. Whilst, the UNCDP, based in UNDP Malawi, supports the governmental decentralization efforts24, primarily through MOLGRD25, and microfinance, through MoF, and has established collaboration with MoAIWD focusing mostly on fishing.

4. Implementing Capacity as capacity to manage and implement programmes from planning to monitoring and evaluation (enabling environment level)

Overall question: Do national authorities have the needed capacity to develop and implement DRE-related programmes (or the DRE dimension of FS and ARD programmes) in a coordinated and cross-sectoral manner. Do they have the capacity to foster multi-stakeholder participation and enhancing territorial/decentralized approaches? (Authorities concerned here are line ministries) General assessment:

In general, most ARD programmes in Malawi do not integrate DRE concerns as a cross-cutting issue nor do they strategically integrate DRE issues into them. All programmes foresee certainly in one way or another some impact on employment (i.e. by supporting crop marketing infrastructure or extension services). However, there is not a systematic effort aiming at taking into account the potential impacts of a programme in terms of quantity and quality of jobs generated (disaggregated by age, sex and location), labour productivity and working conditions, gender equality in accessing employment opportunities, etc.

In terms of presence of concrete results on DRE, their inclusion is not systematic and generally lacks an integrated approach. The current ASWAp does not address employment explicitly and focuses on increased agricultural productivity towards increased incomes. Employment is not explicitly mentioned neither among the objectives or main intervention areas, nor among the cross-cutting issues. Employment/labour/jobs are hardly mentioned explicitly in the document (once or twice). Employment/labour force considerations do not figure among strengths or constraints of agricultural production in Malawi.

22

The WFP is in the planning phase of the ‘’Work for Food’’ programme in the area of sustainable forest schemes and fishing which will be implemented in 5 to 7 districts.

24 In April 2011 UNDP, UNCDF and GoM signed a new 4 year 10 USD million programme consisting of the 3 components: i)

leadership promotion, ii) institutional capacity development, and iii) service delivery and local economic development. The last aspect is a novelty and has been integrated as a request of the GoM. Overall the programmes main objectives are to stimulate and transform the local community, create new job opportunities and focus on local areas.

25 In collaboration with UNCDP and UNDP Malawi, MOLGRD initiated in 2009/10 the National Local Economic Development

Framework which consists of five priority areas: agriculture, manufacturing, tourism, energy, and mining. Job creation through the promotion of labour-based sectors and approaches is among the four cross-cutting issues.

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Efficient implementation of policies, strategies, programmes and plans in addressing DRE issues such as CL prevention, is weak due to lack of financial resources and/or underdeveloped technical capacities of most key stakeholders. For example, there is lack of trained human resources to implement the recently launched Child Labour National Action Plan (NAP 2011-2016) which represents a problem particularly at the district level. Similarly, it has been reported for the integration of gender issues into programmes. The MOGCCD is implementing, together with UNDP, the Malawi Government Strengthening and Investment Programme (2010 to 2014)26 which aims to encourage youth participation and gender strengthening through seasonal and fulltime employment creation of jobs. However, in real terms, gender mainstreaming is a challenge which is illustrated with a fact that there is only one female among 35 District Commissioners within MOLGRD. In general, the smallholders, it has been pointed out, remain the last actors to benefit in the implementation process.

As for the existence of clearly defined DRE baselines and indicators, this is not yet the case as an obvious consequence of the absence of direct employment related objectives/areas of intervention in ARD programmes and plans. For instance, employment does not figure explicitly among the ASWAp results indicators, nor does child labour prevention in agriculture. Indicators on gender equity and empowerment relate indirectly (but not sufficiently) to employment issues through reference to increased and improved agricultural labour due to restructuring of gender roles and responsibilities and improved income security at household level. Whilst, the Malawi Decent Work Country Program (DWCP) 2011-1627 aims to stimulate the creation of more and better employment and income generation opportunities, particularly for the rural population, the youth, women and those working in informal economy, as well as ensuring the elimination of the worst forms of child labour, it is nearly not tackling the agricultural sector per se. The interlinkages among forefront programmes in terms of agriculture development and (rural) employment promotion should be harmonized from their conceptualization to implementation phases, especially given that both contribute to the realization of operational targets in the MGDS II against which they will be monitored.

It is difficult to assess the level of mobilization of resources for DRE from national and external resource partners since there is no any direct/earmarked mobilization of development resources towards RE objectives. Certainly, most ARD programmes contribute indirectly to RE

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The programme commenced in October 2011 in two districts (Thyolo and Ntcheu) with activities focusing on capacity development and gender mainstreaming. In addition, the ministry together with UN WOMEN wants to support the women in production of cash crops. The project, commencing in January 2012 and regarded as a MDG3 acceleration project, focuses on stimulation of rural women’s employment, self-employment and moving out of subsistence farming. The activities include inputs production and extension services, and involves collaboration of different ARD stakeholders including MOAIWD, NASFAM and MOIT.

27 The Malawi Decent Work Country Program (DCWP) 2011-2016, which was developed by the MOL with technical assistance

from ILO and in wide consultation with stakeholders , has been approved by the Malawi Parliament in December 2011. The program has three key priority areas namely: i) creating more and better employment and income generation opportunities, particularly for the vulnerable groups, including the youth, women and people with disabilities, as well as ensuring the elimination of the worst forms of child labour; ii) enhancing and extending the coverage of social protection; and iii) building the capacities of the Government and social partners to improve service delivery. The DWCP emphasises that in addressing the above priority areas, special attention will be given to the informal economy, rural areas and the agricultural sector. Women, youth and children are identified among the vulnerable groups and gender equality is considered as a cross-cutting issue. The DWCP is aligned to and complements the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy II, which is the vehicle for achieving the Government's vision of creating wealth and employment for all Malawians.

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promotion by, for example, stimulating productivity, strengthening community/farmers empowerment, and value added through agro-processing.

In terms of training tools and available good practices for supporting staff on DRE promotion to which the organizations have access, they seem to be extremely limited. Most of the interviewees indicated that CD opportunities are very limited in general and that the provision of trainings on DRE aspects such as gender equitable rural employment, child labour in agriculture, rural youth employment or OSH is minimal if any.