Malawi Journal: Community Adaptation to Climate Change
Adaptation is often thought of as coping mechanisms that poor people and poor communities use to deal with climate change. But in a recent trip to Malawi, I learned that adaptation can and must go further than that. Good adaptation allows communities to cope, but also supports community members’ efforts to become social actors and take command of their own development path.
When I visited Malawi just a few weeks ago, I wanted to learn about adaptation projects that went beyond individual coping mechanisms (such as digging trenches or raising one's house on stilts or cement blocks) to see if and how people were coming together to deal with the impacts of climate change.
ActionAid Malawi hosted my visits to various communities with which they work. My first stop was to the Salima district in central Malawi. Here, ActionAid works with a local women’s rights organization called the Salima Women’s Network on Gender (SAWEG). Because climate change has had such a huge impact on agriculture and on women’s rights, adaptation has become a major focus of SAWEG’s work.
Two years ago, in response ever worsening harvests and increased food insecurity in their communities SAWEG began to organize women into farmers’ clubs. My first stop in Salima was a meeting with representatives from five farmers’ clubs.
Community members testified to the changing climate. “Floods never used to be such a problem,” one woman reported. “The rains used to come November to April. Today, rains begin in December and end by March. The worst flooding happens in December through February.”
And the impacts are devastating. In community after community, houses and belongings are ruined, crops are washed away, and livestock die. Because there are fewer or no crops to sell at market, families have to buy more food and thus have less money. With less money, children can't go to school, more women enter into sex work, and girls as young as 13 are sold into marriage.
But with the little resources they have, the women cope the best they can. Every month, three representatives from each farmers club in Salima meet at SAWEG to discuss successes and challenges in their crop production, new agricultural methods, and other issues that affect their lives.
Loss of food and income due to failing harvests was one of the major challenges. Because women were no longer able to grow enough food to feed their families with their individual gardens, the farmers’ clubs decided it would be better to pool resources into community (club) gardens.
Garden club members share tools, seeds, and knowledge of diverse farming methods, such as the use and application of compost manure. This has led to increased production, and club members each take home more food than they did with just their individual gardens.
When there is extra food, the clubs sells food at a local market. They pool the money they earn so that they can buy the farm inputs they need to continue and expand their garden. A club member can borrow money from the club's savings, but she must pay it back with 20% interest.
These women told me that because of farmers' clubs their communities are more food secure today than they were two years ago. And more than that, the women have gained a new sense of dignity and pride. Although the women were unquestioning in their need for and right to support from their government and from the international community, they also have a new confidence in their ability to cope with the new challenges that come their way. As evidence of this new confidence, the women are planning to campaign on climate change at the national level – something that seemed unthinkable two years ago. All they need is more resources.
As international climate negotiators continue to debate the best ways to transfer adaptation resources to the global South, they must consider the types of adaptation projects that will be truly transformative.
Women in Salima told me that with adaptation funding they could have a windmill to power engine irrigation pumps, plowing equipment, water harvesting options, and training in better use of compost manure and organic agriculture. They also expressed a need for funding to do farmer-to-farmer exchanges where farmers across Malawi, maybe across Africa or across the world, could learn from each others’ experiences and skills.
The farmers clubs of Salima offer an example of truly transformative adaptation. They showed me that adaptation can be more than just coping mechanisms – it can also, and must also, be a process by which people are empowered to act collectively, organize, and take control of their own development.
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