Project
Project
Start Date
2017 Oct 20End Date
2028 Mar 01Countries
Malawi
Thematic Areas
Dry and Sub-Humid LandsForest BiodiversityAccess to Genetic Resources and Benefit-sharingEcosystem RestorationEndangered SpeciesShire Valley Transformation Project-Natural Resources Management Component
- SVTP is a 14-year Program supported by a Series of Projects (SoP) with three sequential but partially overlapping projects.
The scale and complexity of the development challenges in the Shire Valley can only be effectively addressed through an integrated multi-sector approach. The Program is structured around four coordinated pillars: (i) providing reliable, professionally managed, and sustainably financed irrigation service to several irrigators in a phased construction of an irrigation and drainage scheme; (ii) supporting farmer organizations within a comprehensive land use plan, and supporting land tenure strengthening and voluntary consolidation; (iii) establishing and investing in smallholder owned commercial farm enterprises (SOCFE) transitioning into commercial agriculture from subsistence farming and integrating them into commercial value chains; and (iv) natural resources management in and around the project area. These four pillars are expected to increase the beneficiaries’ capacity to respond to ever-increasing drought and floods. The Program aims at providing irrigation to over 43,000 ha through the phased construction of a new gravity-fed irrigation scheme that will supply surface water to over 27,600 ha of agricultural land presently under rainfed cultivation, creating agricultural development opportunities in the fertile valley, as well as approximately 15,700 ha of existing irrigation areas that currently use electric pumps to abstract water from the Shire River (see Map at the end of this document). In case one or more existing irrigation schemes opt-out from drawing water from SVTP’s gravity canal, additional new lands can be developed, mostly on the right bank of the main canal in the Nsanje District. - Component 4 on Natural Resources Management-1 is assisting in the enhancement of management of protected areas, forest reserves, and the Elephant Marsh.
The project is encouraging long-term funding for the management of the Lower Shire's natural resource base, ensuring the sustainability of community livelihoods and the ecosystem services on which they rely. Project activities will contribute to increasing vegetation cover, improving or preserving existing carbon pools in the watershed and mitigating the impacts of floods. The planned project activities will strengthen the management and sustainability of key protected areas (Lengwe, Mwabvi), the Elephant Marsh (EM), and forest reserves (Matandwe, Thambani). Investments under the project will include the development of infrastructure deficit in the protected areas and forest reserves to ensure effective management, monitoring, and enforcement including the development of nature trails/roads, ranger camps, fences, water holes, tourism facilities and utilities. Accompanying these proposed investments will be critical community livelihood interventions in the areas around the protected areas and forest reserves to strengthen co-management and reduce direct threats to aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity, such as overfishing, invasive species, waste and habitat destruction. Importantly, SVTP will continue strengthening the management of the Elephant Marsh, which provides a unique habitat sanctuary to flora and fauna, through the implementation of its Community Conservation Area Management Plan (developed under SVTP-1) including through further promoting ecosystem-based fisheries management. - The proposed activities will provide support to the GoM’s 2016 commitment to place 4.5 million hectares of degraded and deforested land under restoration by 2030 in support of the Bonn Challenge.
Proposed activities will promote private sector engagement and investment in the sustainable management of the remaining forest reserves and degraded forest areas through awareness raising and capacity building, as well as performance-based grants and payments (carbon credits), to shift toward ensuring sustainable financing of the management of the remaining forests. These activities are expected to result in the establishment of approximately 10,000 ha of forests by project closing. The activities will raise awareness and capacity also of the SOCFEs to engage in forestry management, natural regeneration, restoration of plantations, and commercialization of forest products to promote sustainable value chains and forest management practices. As a key climate change mitigation action, the rehabilitation of degraded forests and the planting of new forests will increase the rate and quantity of carbon sequestration.
Start Date
2017 Oct 20End Date
2028 Mar 01Countries
Malawi