Located in southern Africa and bordered by Mozambique, Tanzania, and Zambia, Malawi is a small, densely populated landlocked country. Rainfed subsistence agriculture is the main livelihood for 85 percent of the population, leaving them highly vulnerable to climate change. Over the past two decades, droughts and flood events have increased in frequency, intensity, and magnitude, thus undermining food and water security, water quality, energy, and the sustainability of the livelihoods of rural communities.
INVESTING IN MALAWI
CIF’s investments in Malawi are through its Pilot Program for Climate Resilience (PPCR) and Scaling up Renewable Energy Program (SREP). Its development of a strategic program for climate resilience under PPCR is aimed at mainstreaming climate change considerations into long-term policymaking and in sector strategies and programs particularly agriculture and fisheries, building institutional capacity for adaptation and disaster risk reduction, and facilitating knowledge sharing on innovative climate adaptation actions at multiple scales.
Malawi's SREP investment plan is targeted at addressing the technical and financial barriers to enabling a robust domestic renewable energy industry.
Through the CIF Technical Assistance Facility, about $100,000 was programmed for technical assistance activities in 2021. The program covered activities that support climate action through non-traditional financing instruments and debt management.
In 2022, the African Zambezi River Basin Region was selected as one of the first participants in the Nature, People and Climate investment program. Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Zambia seek finance to support the restoration of 30,000 hectares of degraded wetlands along the Zambezi River Basin.
