UNDP Malawi

Lilongwe, July 02, 2008 –United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Government of Malawi and the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) have flagged off the second phase of donor support to the Electoral Reforms and Elections in Malawi.

The signing ceremony of a Project Support Document by the three partners, which took place at the UNDP Offices in Lilongwe signaled the start of the flow of assistance from donors to help with, among other things, the preparation and actual conduct of the May 19, 2009 Parliamentary and Presidential elections.

The support, which officially took off on July 1st, also aims at strengthening management and technical capacity in MEC to carry out the forthcoming and any other elections thereafter.

Lilongwe, June 30, 2008 – Ministry of Economic Planning and Development (MEPD), with support from UNDP, UNICEF, UNFPA, EU, DFID and GTZ has launched the second Joint Programme for National Monitoring and Evaluation whose main objective is to enhance evidence-based decision-making, planning and budgeting at national, sector, district and community level.

Director of the Debt and Aid Division in the Ministry of Finance, Dr Naomi Ngwira, Director for Monitoring and Evaluation in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development Mr Ben Botolo and Deputy Resident Representative a.i. Ms Violet Kakyomya on behalf of development partners signed the new programme document on June 30, 2008.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Mr Botolo said that the programme is a follow-up to the first Joint Programme to support Monitoring and Evaluation.

ZOMBA, June 23, 2008 –Coffee Association of Malawi (CAMAL) with the help of the UNDP’s Growing Sustainable Businesses (GSB) Programme has embarked on a programme to increase local consumption of coffee in a bid to make the crop a viable investment opportunity in the country.

CAMAL is one of the organizations benefiting from GSB programme which supports the Malawi Investment Promotion Agency (MIPA) in its effort to reform and improve the enabling environment for business activity.

To achieve the increased consumption, CAMAL is promoting the local coffee through the Changamuka Coffee Promotion, an initiative where the organization is targeting players in the hospitality industry, especially hotels, as outlets for the coffee. With the initiative CAMAL expects to bring awareness on the good quality of Malawi coffee and consequently increase the local consumption of coffee in Malawi to absorb 30 percent of national production which remains after exporting the crop.

Zomba, April 12, 2008 –In great detail, Alex Mpuku, a farmer in Chiunda Village, Traditional Authority Mlumbe in Zomba district, explains how the Millennium Village Project has changed his life.

“Before the programme started, there was no meaningful agriculture to talk about in this area as people did not have enough interaction with agricultural extension workers and there was no practice of modern methods of agriculture”