Malawi

While digital tools and services present an opportunity to address some of the critical challenges facing food and water systems, concerns remain over large groups of people, such as women, elderly people, or people with little formal education, who may be excluded from the development, use, and benefit of digital innovation. In this report we present the outcome of a study that was conducted to assess whether a digital innovation that provides an irrigation service in many African countries was socially inclusive. The assessment was done with the multi-dimensional digital inclusivity index, a tool that is being developed for assessing digital inclusiveness across various dimensions in food, land, and water systems.

The CGIAR Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa also known as Ukama Ustawi” (UU) Initiative’s goal is to empower millions of vulnerable smallholder farmers to transition from maize mixed systems to sustainably intensified, diversified, and de-risked agrifood systems is well underway. The initiative is being implemented in 13 African countries using coordinated transformative change interventions driven by an understanding of the unique multidimensional challenges and the opportunities they present in the different local and national contexts. One of the research activities in Ukama Ustawi is Work Package 5 (WP5): Empower and Engage women and youth in agribusiness ecosystems. In implementing this work package in Malawi, the project commissioned a landscaping study to map out the multidimensional challenges faced by the youth in agribusiness, the current interventions that are addressing the challenges, and the unique opportunities for coordinated interventions. A design workshop was held in which key stakeholders in the agribusiness space discussed the opportunities for coordinated interventions to find the best way to use available resources and linkages in a project that furthers the goals of Work Package 5. This was supplemented by key informant interviews and follow-up design activities by the Equip Consulting Group team. The proposed intervention title is “Scaling Youth Innovations in Agribusiness.” The purpose is to identify innovations for scaling a youth organization called Associated Center for Agro-based Development and Entrepreneurship Support (ACADES). Specifically, the intervention will seek to increase youth participation in agribusiness by showcasing the benefits other young people have gotten from agribusiness and to promote the sustainability of youth ventures in agribusiness by outlining best practices that have led to ACADESapos;s continued growth. The project will be implemented over nine months, in Mchinji and Nkhotakota Districts in the central region of Malawi and will coordinate or partner with financial institutions, other youth networks, the National Youth Council of Malawi, and the private sector.

Adoption of improved seed varieties (ISV) is considered one of the key ingredients to sustainably increase crop yields and incomes and reducing hunger. Previous research has extensively demonstrated that there is a positive link between adoption of ISV and several agricultural and health outcomes. However, most prior research focused on a single crop only, particularly maize, yet most smallholder farmers grow multiple crops simultaneously. Additionally, most of the existing studies are largely case studies using cross-sectional data, where controlling for possible unobserved confounding factors is difficult. We attempt to address these caveats by testing the hypothesis that adoption of ISV improves crop productivity and income, dietary diversity, and short-term child nutrition outcomes. To do so, we use a decade (2010–2020) of nationally representative panel data from Malawi. Our panel data regression results show that adoption of ISV is positively correlated with value of crop production, dietary diversity, and weight for age z-scores. Our findings suggest that intensifying development and promoting use of nutrition-sensitive ISV among smallholder farming households could be key to sustainably address food insecurity and child malnutrition.

This report aims to explore the multidimensional challenges and opportunities for youth in agripreneurship in Malawi for a better understanding of interventions for youth in agribusiness. It examines the enabling and disenabling environment for young agripreneurs and how best to engage youth within the agribusiness sector. The report draws on in-depth interviews, workshops, and secondary literature to highlight key issues and strategies to engage youth agripreneurs in Malawi. It also offers recommendations for actors, practitioners, and policymakers to enhance transformative interventions for youth participation in agribusiness. Suggested measures include improving access to input, market, and equipment, setting up quota systems targeting youth agripreneurs, and better coordinating youth programs between ministries and the private sectors. The report also emphasized that these strategies are not just to achieve youth inclusion in agribusiness but also for the sustainability of youth programs which contribute to building resilient societies.