The Sustainable Food Systems for Rural Resilience and Transformation (TRANSFORM) programme aims at strengthening local food systems and to demonstrate a sustainable improvement of food and nutrition security, resilience to climate change and income among agriculture-dependent rural households. The goal of the program is to contribute to sustainable agricultural transformation that will result in significant growth of the agricultural sector, increasing incomes for farm households, improved food and nutrition in Malawi. The program goal is compatible with the overall goal of the National Agriculture Investment Plan (NAIP) and fully aligned to the Norwegian Government Food Systems Action Plan.

Overall Objective

To strengthen local food systems and demonstrate a sustainable improvement of food and nutrition security, income, and resilience to climate change among 150,000 agriculture dependent rural households within selected EPAs in 5 districts of Malawi by 2025.

The program will reach the expected overall objective through the following four inter-linked outcomes:

1. Increased productivity, production, diversification, and resilience to climate change at household and community levels.
2. Increased consumption of safe, nutritious, and diverse food.
3. Improved profitable market access and entrepreneurship.
4. Improved research, policy and regulatory environment for agriculture transformation and climate resilience.

The sustainable Food Systems in Malawi (FoodMa) aims at contributing towards resilient and Sustainable Food Systems for better income and improved food and nutrition security in Malawi. FoodMa Programme is based upon a holistic system thinking approach that emphasizes ‘action to impact’ research, education, dissemination and outreach. In this programme, Sustainable food systems include aspects of – and activities related to – food production, processing and distribution, sale and consumption, as well as their socio-economic and environmental impact (HLPE 2017). FoodMa will integrate innovative participatory approaches with evidence-based interventions to build and strengthen the economic, social and environmental foundation that will ensure food and nutrition security complemented with taking agriculture as a livelihood and business through value-adding within selected value chains. In order to achieve these objectives, the role of universities through research, education and dissemination of good practice needs to be reinforced.

Overall Objective

The objective of the FoodMa is to strengthen local food systems in selected Extension Planning Areas (EPAs) in five of Malawi's districts and to demonstrate a sustainable improvement of food and nutrition security, resilience to climate change, and income among agriculture-dependent rural households. By strengthening LUANAR, FoodMa will build skills and competencies and generate research evidence necessary to achieving, wider agriculture intensification, effective policies, and supportive institutions that will create a conducive environment for sustainable food systems amongst small-scale farmers.

The Programme objectives are presented in four Work Packages (WP) as follows:

1. WP1: Strengthen food system governance and institutions;
2. WP2: Enhance agricultural biodiversity, farming systems and seed security;
3. WP3: Enhance climate smart agriculture through sustainable agriculture intensification;
4. WP4: Strengthen the capacity of LUANAR to respond to issues affecting the Malawi food system.

Capacity Building for Managing Climate Change in Malawi (CABMACC) is a five-year programme (May 2013 to April 2018) funded by the Royal Kingdom of Norway at the tune of NOK 60 Million to strengthen the training, research and outreach in climate change adaptation and mitigation by the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR). The goal of the programme is to improve livelihoods and food security through innovative responses and enhanced capacity for climate change adaptation.

The programme objectives are:

1. Increased capacity on advocacy, outreach,networking and mainstreaming of climate change within national policies and plans
2. Enhanced capacity by the University towards emerging local and global climate change perspectives
3. Increased knowledge, technologies and systems for climate change adaptation and mitigation

The Network for Enhanced Livelihoods (NEAL) is a grouping of partners who are implementing different livelihoods and climate change adaptation programmes with financial support from NORAD and the Royal Norwegian Embassy (RNE). The partners include: The African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC); The Development Fund (DF) of Norway (Secretariat for NEAL); Leadership for Environment and Development (LEAD); Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR); National Association of Smallholder Farmers in Malawi (NASFAM); Total Land Care (TLC) and We Effect.
The goal of NEAL is to improve service delivery in livelihoods programmes for impact and sustainability. The purpose is to improve coordination, networking, learning and sharing of best practices in the areas of sustainable food security and climate smart practices among NORAD and the Royal Norwegian Embassy supported programmes in Malawi in a way that increases quality and impact and reduces duplication of service delivery.

The government of Malawi with funding from the World Bank will implement a Skills Development Project (SDP). This four year project builds on the World Bank’s New Education Strategy 2020 and the IDA’s “Skills toward Employment and Productivity” (STEP) framework, which proposes a sequenced combination of education, training, and labor market activities to improve skills needed for productivity and economic growth.
The project aims to promote equitable opportunities for skill development to rural youth from poor and vulnerable backgrounds. The project supports the development of different occupational categories within priority areas, such as professionals, middle level and vocational occupations. It is expected that this will ensure greater synergies between the skills development and academic/education sectors and pave the way to life-long learning and better labor market outcomes. At country level the project has targeted the public universities and Technical Entrepreneurial and Vocational Training Authority (TEVETA). These institutional have developed various Institutional Implementation Plans (IIP) that will increase access to vocational and higher education. In this regard, the LUANAR is to introduce other teaching and learning delivery modes that will allow more students to access its academic programmes. The emphasis of the SDP IIP Luanar component is to expand the Open and Distance Learning (ODL) mode.