Higher education institutions (HEIs)
Higher education institutions in Malawi and Tanzania face critical challenges in regards to their delivery of higher degree programmes on water and the environmental management. This is due to the lack of higher degree training opportunities for staff on the one hand and the teaching, learning and research infrastructure limitations on the other hand.
As a result, the institutions face high brain drain rates as the staff seek greener pastures outside their home countries. By being trained in research and capacity building programmes attached to their home HEIs, experience has shown that most of the staff are retained.
Communities/Rural Households in Lake Malawi Basin
The riparian communities in the study catchments of the LMB in Malawi and Tanzania are the main targets as they derive their livelihoods from utilizing natural resources. Their livelihoods are largely based on agricultural production throughout the year and the water-agriculture interface is affected by groundwater-surface water interactions, land-use change and change climate.
In order to optimise benefits from this project, consultative workshops will be organised with communities during which the project concept will be shared, issues identified, their roles in the project discussed, immediate and long-term priorities agreed and the systems for reporting back and receiving feedback agreed. The project’s activities on policy, local management and societal responses will thus intimately depend on the participation of local communities in Participatory Action Research.
Postgraduate and Post-doc candidates
The project targets to build a high cadre of capacity at MSc and PhD level. The candidates for these positions are mainly recruited from key stakeholders active in the management of fragile ecosystems in Malawi and Tanzania. In addition, the project targets post-docs who have attained their qualifications during the last 5 years to assist in mentoring of the MSc and PhD candidates.
The MSc and PhDs will be involved in various studies in the Lake Malawi Basin which will allow the postgraduates and post-docs to publish and hence advance their careers in their local institutions. The postgraduate students will thereby also acquire higher degree qualifications and thus facilitate their employment in the local institutions of higher educations as well as public and private sector.
In fact, several potential post-docs and postgraduate students have been involved in the project planning process. The key research topics and themes have been identified through their inputs based on a critical situational analysis and on present studies.
Decision and policy makers
The Technical Ministries/Departments/Parastatals governing water, agriculture and fisheries, land and forestry are also a key beneficiary group. These administrative bodies implement various development programmes in the study catchments and thus require knowledge to conduct better practices in the value chain, leading to better livelihoods. In each county in the south, the project teams have briefed these departments and sought their views on priority action research.
The project will assess the best strategies to ensure sustainable supply of raw water of good quality, considering both cost-benefit of abatement actions as well as thresholds and barriers in the society against implementations of the actions. This will be used to inform policy review and also development of country strategy papers with various investment partners. The development of Knowledge translation platform (KTP) has been prioritised by the policy makers and will be developed and concretised so that new knowledge/evidence could be used in policy review and formulation.
The NGO communities
The lessons from the project will be used to introduce change in delivery of programmes in the various catchments and thereby improve their programme implementation.
NGO will be engaged in the workshops held in catchments. During the project implementation, they will also be invited to project review meetings to comment on the emerging results and facilitate access to their work reports.