Day: June 16, 2023

The United Nations refugee agency has pledged its support of Malawi’s move to resettle more than 50,000 refugees and asylum-seekers currently living at the overcrowded Dzaleka refugee camp in the central part of the country. Last week, Malawi’s government announced it had secured a new site in the northern part of the country to help reduce the number refugees at the Dzaleka camp, which was originally designed to accommodate 12,000 people.

UNHCR Regional Director for Southern Africa Valentin Tapsoba pledged support of the move after meeting Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera, in the capital, Lilongwe.

According to a statement released after the meeting, Tapsoba said UNHCR welcomes the government of Malawi’s commitment to improving living conditions and overall well-being of refugees living in the country by upgrading refugee settlements.

Malawi set up Dzaleka refugee camp in 1994 to accommodate about 12,000 people but now it is hosting more than 50,000 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Kenyi Emanuel Lukajo is the associate external relations and reporting officer for the UNHCR in Malawi. He says the government’s relocation of about 8,000 refugees, who have been staying outside the camp, has strained the already scarce resources at the camp.

“Life is very difficult,” said Lokajo. “There is not enough water, not enough shelter, even the children who are pulled out of school in the city are not able to enroll in schools because there are not enough slots. So, everything is not there, so we don’t have the money to provide for an additional number of people that have been relocated.”

Malawi started forcibly relocating refugees, who were illegally living across rural and urban areas of the country last month, after the expiration of the April 15 deadline the government set for voluntary relocation.

In a statement, the UNHCR says that to date, approximately 1,900 individuals have returned to the congested Dzaleka camp amid financial challenges the agency is facing in taking care of the refugees.

The U.N. refugee agency says that as of 1 June, it has only received 15 percent of the required $27.2 million to adequately support refugees and asylum-seekers in Malawi this year.

However, the Malawi government says it has acquired land for a new resettlement site for the refugees in Chitipa district, north of Malawi, to solve overcrowding problems facing the refugees there.

Ken Zikhale Ng’oma is the minister of homeland security in Malawi. He told a press conference last week that the new settlement will also help keep away potential criminals who enter Malawi under the pretext of being refugees and asylum keepers.

“Which is why we want to change the system now. We will close Dzaleka anytime,” Ng’oma said. “And we will open up a new site in Chitipa where we want to make sure that anybody who enters Malawi should be examined before entering Malawi just as Americans do. No asylum seeker will get in and say ‘I will apply inside’ no. It is done at the gate. So, we want to borrow the American system.”

The UNHCR says it stands ready to provide the necessary support toward the new site.

“If the government says they have found a new site, UNHCR has no objection to that as long as UNHCR is involved in the process and then we assess the site to ensure that the site has got enough water, is not prone to flooding and the site is not very close to the border,” said Lokajo. “So if all the conditions are met, then UNHCR will not hesitate to support the process.”

Malawi government authorities have assured to involve UNHCR in the site assessment process and collaborate to secure resources for the development of the new settlement.

Source: Voice of America

Agricultural production and productivity in Malawi are constrained by many factors, including lack of access to information on modern ways of production. The majority of Malawian farmers have, for so many years, suffered from decreased numbers of technical extension workers, which, to some extent has contributed to sub-optimal performance of the agriculture sector. Extension services play varying roles in improving production and productivity at household level. Productivity is too low resulting from low levels of adoption of modern technologies, limited access to improved farm inputs, low levels of mechanization as well as weak linkages to output markets. A International Food Policy Research Institute paper from 2015 explains how extension services and frequency of extension visits to farmers significantly influence the adoption of recommended agronomic practices while on the other hand, contact with extension services is not significant in explaining smallholder farmer adoption of inorganic fertilizers and hybrid maize seed. These inconsistent study results mirror the challenges and weaknesses in extension service delivery in the country and signal the inconsistent quality and relevance of the extension messages provided to farmers.

In order to respond to the challenges and to revamp and improve extension service delivery, FAO in collaboration with the Government of Malawi and with funding from the European Union designed the KULIMA programme. This project supports the existing national agricultural extension delivery strategy of nurturing model villages through the Farmer Field Schools (FFS) approach. The FFS provides agricultural advisory services, helping smallholder farmers in particular, acquire new skills and knowledge and to become more resilient to climate change and other challenges in their communities or ecosystems. The approach has increasingly been recognized as a way to develop skills of highly diverse smallholder farmers and rural communities and increase their food, nutrition and income security in a rapidly changing context. The approach further supports capacities of the extension service providers to facilitate transformative learning for achieving sustainable production and productivity by empowering productive farmers to identify and cope with emerging challenges.

Since its inception in 2017, the KULIMA programme has worked with 8 177 lead farmers and 492 extension workers have been trained as community based facilitators (CBFs) and master trainers (MTs) respectively. The trainings are being held at government owned residential training centres (RTCs) in Mzuzu, Mponela, Lisasadzi, Namiasi and Thuchira. These facilities were once run down and dilapidated due to a lack of investment and maintenance, but thanks to the FFS programme, they have been renovated to hold training sessions. Further, the approach has helped to alleviate and bridge the communication and information gap that was created by the liberalization of the extension services in Malawi at the beginning of the new millennium. In 2000, the Ministry of Agriculture developed a new extension policy, whose focus is on the role of farmers seeking the extension services they need instead of the government employed extension worker going to farmers with a pre-determined message (demand driven extension services); this helped to create technical information gap within the agricultural extension advisory services.

Interaction with beneficiary farmers reveals that the FFS approach has helped to increase production and productivity per unit area. In Thyolo district, land holding size is too small due to population pressure. Farmers who were harvesting, for example, 400 kg of maize on a 0.2 ha piece of land are now harvesting 1.750 kg, over 70 percent increase in production. This is a direct result of adopting good agricultural practices acquired from the intensive practical field training which simplifies adoption and application of new knowledge and skills. There has also been farm level enterprise diversification. The increase in production and subsequently in household incomes, have encouraged farmers to invest not only in only in one enterprise (cereal crop production) but also into two or more community businesses to help expand their income generation capacities and spread risks associated with narrow production bases. The programme has documented investment in apiculture, piggery, dairy cow farming, goat production, poultry as well as high value horticultural enterprises. With expansion and stability in income generating capacities, the majority of the beneficiary communities have been able to improve the way they live (by building better and durable houses), buying high value assets, sending children to school and eating diversified foods. This is supported by the baseline data from the programme’s monitoring and evaluation system. Furthermore, data from FAO and NGO consortium on FFS shows that over 58 percent of their members are women, this is important to highlight considering the role of women farmers in food production at household level.

More significantly, FFS has greatly helped in enhancing the ability of adults to learn and acquire new farming knowledge and skills. This encourages them to innovate and adopt better ways of production and living. Farmers say they are now better at food budgeting and making better nutrition decisions thanks to time spent at FFS.

FAO has been at the core of developing, implementing, and revising the FFS approach worldwide for over 30 years now. Its ability to reach out to experts from outside the country helped to set the foundation for developing the capacity of Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture and its field technical officers. Malawi has benefitted enormously from the experiences of FFS experts from the Horn of Africa region where the implementation of this approach is at an advanced stage. Furthermore, the positive relationship between FAO, government officials and other research institutions in the country facilitated timely institutionalization of the approach. And now the national agriculture policy recognizes FFS as one of the key approaches for supporting extension service delivery in the country.

Source: EMM/ FAO

Peace has returned on the border of Nkararo- Enooretet in Transmara West Narok County following a week of border skirmishes.

This follows heavy deployment of General Service Unit (GSU), Rapid Deployment Unit (RDU) and Administration Police security personnel to the region.

The deployment of the security teams came after a visit to the region by the Narok County security team led by County Commissioner Isaac Masinde who had promised government response to the skirmishes.

Several acres of sugarcane farms and houses were burned in the week long skirmishes, as close to 200 people were displaced.

Speaking to KNA, Masinde urged residents to resume their normal activities as he assured them the government will provide enough security.

However, to bring a lasting solution to the perennial clashes which have persisted for decades in the region, Masinde urged those living on the border to respect the Natembeya Cutline; named after the former Rift Valley Regional Commissioner George Natembeya, terming it as a legal tool.

Meanwhile, Trans Mara West Sub County Police Commander Jamleck Ngaruya has revealed that 26 people have so far been arrested and charged in connection to the clashes, as five others are still being monitored.

Source: Kenya News Agency

The Estate Agents Registration Board (EARB) has warned illegal and felonious upcoming associations in the sector by reaffirming its commitment to uphold professionalism, ethics and transparency in the sector.

Speaking during a press briefing on Friday, EARB Chairperson Eunice Macharia warned the public to be wary of new associations and groupings from various mutations of land buying companies who have previously swindled Kenyans through the pretense of selling land.

The Chairperson said that these associations are neither regulated nor registered by the board and government citing that any person associated with them may be exposed to fraud.

Macharia said that Cap 533 of the Estate Agents clause under the Kenyan Constitution authorizes EARB to register persons who negotiate or act in relation to selling, purchasing and letting lands as well as buildings on behalf of a property owner.

‘We do not need another body purporting to do our work, as this would amount to double legislation jeopardizing the registered estate agents,’ remarked Macharia.

She urged the public to seek professional help from organizations such as Institution of Surveyors of Kenya who provide a variety of services in the land and property sector and are recognized in most of the land related legislation like the Estate Agents Act, Land Registration Act and Land Act among others.

Macharia added ‘In the past majority lost funds to companies who often promised heaven and delivered hell, we therefore urge property buyers to be diligent in their land investments and ensure they are dealing with registered and licensed estate agents from credible sources.

She reiterated that the real estate sector plays a significant role in Kenya’s economy serving as a pillar of growth and expansion which encompasses a wide range of activities such as property sales, rentals, property management, development and valuation.

Macharia said that EARB has registered 3,000 estate agents who underwent rigorous processes to meet the necessary requirements, adhere to professional standards and comply with the code of conduct established adding that all agents of the board are published in Kenyan Gazette with their details for easy identification purposes.

She mentioned that the board is working closely with the ministry to bridge the current gap situation by pushing forward new legislative and policy amendments in the Estate Agents Bill as well as roll a massive recruitment of over 10,000 registered estate agents.

Macharia stated that EARB in collaboration with Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) will carry out due diligence on the issue of titles and subdivision schemes approved by the national and county governments as well as parcels with requisite titles citing that most buyers are enticed with false schemes through marketing gimmicks and freebies.

Macharia said that the board aims to foster a culture of professionalism benefiting the industry, public and the country at large by providing guidance, training and support agents and property managers to enhance their skills, knowledge and integrity.

The Chairperson also stated that the board plays a critical role in addressing complaints and disputes arising from real estate transactions by establishing better mechanisms to receive, investigate and resolve complaints lodged against registered estate agents and property agents.

‘Our existence ensures uniform standards are upheld, promote a level playing field for all industry practitioners, protect consumers and maintain integrity in the sector, Creation of parallel, unregulated and illegal associations with no basis law only lead to chaos and confusion in the industry,’ said Macharia.

Source: Kenya News Agency