No matter the social or economic indicators taken into account to build the lists of the world’s poorest countries, Malawi is infamous for consistently coming up at the top. The development perspectives for this small landlocked country in southeastern Africa are uncertain, its challenges on the economic front—among others—huge, and its record for women’s rights, disastrous.
Even so, Driana Lwanda is sporting a sincere, contagious optimism. The woman in charge of the programs of the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC) talks enthusiastically of the actions this Malawian NGO, a partner of the Uniterra program for many years, is leading in the country. Her objective: to foster sustainable growth for the local communities through business and trade, namely by engaging the private sector.
Invited to attend the annual conference of International Volunteer Cooperation Organisations (IVCO) held in Montreal last fall, Driana Lwanda eagerly shared how the AICC, through their various programs, is slowly but surely improving the economic situation of some communities, while also improving the situation for women through economic empowerment, among other things. “Both issues are closely related: 80% of Malawi’s economy is based on agriculture, and 70% of these revenues are generated by women,” she noted.
In 2013, the AICC created the Legumes Development Trust, these staples representing some of the country’s main crops. Acting as a coordination body for all the actors working in this sector, the Trust aims to facilitate partnerships between stakeholders throughout the legumes value chain. The objective is clear: to make the sector more efficient and profitable in order to ultimately grow the revenues of every actor involved, starting with the farmers. The Trust is focused on improving the productivity and quality of legume crops, as well as on establishing a fair and stable price list.
“Our strength resides in that we are working with the private sector,” claims Driana Lwanda. “We bring together the businesses, the public sector, the associations and all the other actors of the value chain: small producers, commercial actors, transporters, those who export, those who process, etc. We identify the problems and try to find solutions by promoting better collaboration and coordination among those involved. Most of all, we call upon a sense of corporate social responsibility to get businesses to change the way they work with the public sector so that they can benefit the people, especially women and youth, and help build resilient communities with room for sustainable growth. Today, these businesses must contribute to a better distribution of wealth.”
Many volunteers of the Uniterra international cooperation program, implemented jointly by CECI and WUSC, have supported the Malawian organization these past years. Among other initiatives, they have helped implement workshops to raise awareness or build capacity, and they also developed a geographical information system platform which greatly helped build a network connecting the different actors of the legumes value chain. “As an example, this allows buyers to immediately find the raw materials they need, anywhere in the country,” explained Driana Lwanda. “It also helped significantly increase the number of our partners. It’s a very precious tool!”
While the AICC offers support to all members of the communities involved, many of its activities are specifically focused on women. As such, the Legumes Development Trust helped connect women farmers with businesses that provide them with seeds or that commit to buying a determined portion of their production. It also offered these women training on good agricultural practices.
“However, we started realizing that even with the increase in productivity, the situation for the women of the sector in terms of involvement, responsibility or empowerment was not changing,” noted Driana Lwanda. “Sure, there were more legumes available to use at home, but revenue from the harvest was still controlled by the men, who are traditionally in charge of sales.”
Uniterra’s Malawian partner started using a different approach, encouraging women to process the legumes and sell the products themselves. As a result, several thousand women farmers throughout the country started coming together to pool their production. “Women meet once a month in groups of 20 to decide together what to do with their legumes,” proudly explained the woman in charge of programming at the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship, which offers training and mentoring to help these women build capacity. “For example, they may pool their peanut production and decide jointly whether to sell the harvest as is or to process the peanuts to make cooking oil or flour that they can sell themselves. By combining their respective production volume and by selling collectively, they gain more power and the revenues they generate allow them to provide for the daily needs of their family.”
And as always, women’s economic empowerment has direct repercussions on the relations between these women and the men in their families and in their broader communities. Driana Lwanda herself admits to being surprised by the reach of the changes she witnesses week after week. “Before, these women were basically slaves to men. But as they realize that women can be business partners too, men start progressing and breaking free of their traditionalist views. Many are encouraging the women, while a few even wish to partner with them!” said Driana Lwanda with a smile, adding that the numerous training and awareness-building workshops for families are geared toward not only economic issues, but also human rights. “From the moment a woman starts bringing home some revenue, there is a drastic change in perspective,” she explained. “And in the vast majority of cases, this also marks the end of abuse.”
Carried by such positive results, the Legumes Development Trust is now looking to extend its efforts to youth entrepreneurship, all while continuing to support women to further develop their activities. The issue of international exportation is now next in line, with a pilot project—in which a Uniterra volunteer is involved—currently analyzing the implementation of a sales platform through which Malawian women could sell their products to neighbouring countries.
