Malawi

Swedish Cooperative Centre started working together with organisations in Malawi in 2002. The background was a desire to find new collaborations in Southern Africa that could form part of a regional programme, where farmers’ organisations in neighbouring countries learn from each others experiences. The thinking then, as it is now, was to support small holder farmers own organisations and to strengthen their ability to defend and voice the rights of their members.

During the first years, SCC worked in partnership with FUM and MUSCCO. In 2005 several studies were carried out together with SCCs sister organisation Vi-Agroforestry. The studies concluded that a more integrated approach would improve the results. This was the starting point for the Malawi Programme that initiated operations in 2006. The programme is the first of its kind in Malawi. The five organisations - FUM, NASFAM, MUSCCO, Vi-Agroforestry and SCC - have formed a consortium where the organisations jointly decide on the programmes implementation.

Most Malawians are dependent on agriculture. Those who live around Lake Malawi are also small scale fishermen. The majority are poor and lack access to both inputs as well as markets for their produce. They have small possibilities to access credits and are often exploited by larger, commercial interests.

The vast majority of small holder farmers are poorly organised. That means that a large portion of the poor rural population in Malawi lacks the possibility to formulate and demand the fulfilment of their human rights.

In the Malawi Programme, NASFAM and FUM are working to offer small holder farmers and small scale fishermen training in improved production methods and marketing issues, as well as other equally important areas such as gender equality, HIV prevention and AIDS mitigation.
A majority of small holder farmers and small scale fishermen do not have enough income or collateral to access loans in commercial banks. Savings and credit