Malawi
Landlocked Malawi is among the world's poorest countries. Of its 11 million people only 16% live in urban areas, mainly in the cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre and a handful of smaller towns.
The remainder live in rural areas where the population density is one of the highest in Africa (six times that of neighbouring Zambia for example).
The official figures for water and sanitation coverage are erroneously high, as the definition for safe access in the country is confused and the statistics include many broken facilities.
An ongoing national water point mapping project, in which WaterAid has been involved, indicates that only 57% of the rural population have access to safe water in comparison to 90% of the urban population. Access to sanitation is considerably lower with only 15% to 30% of the rural population having access to a latrine.
As a result water-related diseases, including cholera and typhoid, are common; a problem exacerbated by the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS which has affected 15% of the rural population and 30% of those in urban areas. Almost half of the population is under 15 years old and many of these are orphans.
Achievements to date
- Encouraged communities to evaluate their needs and express their demand for clean water and effective sanitation
- Revived old approaches to composting latrines and developed social marketing programmes to encourage take-up. Nearly 3000 latrines have been constructed
- Begun rehabilitating existing piped water systems in Machinga District. One scheme will provide nearly 15,000 poor people with access to a safe water supply
- Facilitated the construction of 203 hand-dug wells in the Salima District, bringing safe water to 26,177 poor people
- Initiated the water point mapping project to determine the equity of distribution of water services in rural communities. 24 out of 28 Malawi's districts have now been mapped and the scheme has received national and international interest
- Developed sustainable systems for managing water kiosks in the low income areas of Lilongwe City
WaterAid in Malawi
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| Eliza Ali washing her daughter Hawa at the new village handpump. |
| Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull |
WaterAid began work in Malawi in November 1999 and projects are now under way in four rural areas: Salima, Machinga, Mzimba, and Nkhotakota, with one urban project in the capital Lilongwe.
We work in partnership with district governments, a local non governmental organisation (NGO), a church based organisation and a public water utility company. Occasionally we also work with small scale private service providers.
The majority of our work is in rural areas. Here most Malawians rely on subsistence farming, but food security is precarious and the country is increasingly prone to extreme weather patterns, from prolonged drought to heavy rainfall.
This coupled with rapid population growth means that agricultural land is under severe pressure. Deforestation and pollution have resulted in large-scale erosion and consequently problems with water resources are increasing.
In Malawi WaterAid is concentrating on rehabilitating existing water systems rather than building new ones. We help communities to set up water and sanitation committees which have responsibility for the overall management of water projects.
In all projects these committees are taking the lead in planning, coordinating and monitoring the rehabilitation work and all community members contribute towards the ongoing running and maintenance costs.
This means that the villagers have ownership of the systems and, after training, have the skills and motivation to ensure that the water systems continue to work for the foreseeable future. Sustainability is a key factor in all WaterAid projects.
In order to ensure communities gain the maximum health benefits our partners run hygiene education and sanitation activities alongside water projects.
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| Robert Chusale drinks water from one of the handpumps his village installed with WaterAid's help. |
| Credit: WaterAid / Jon Spaull |
A variety of latrines are promoted to ensure communities have options to suit them.
One innovative approach is encouraging the construction of composting latrines in which human waste is mixed with soil and ash to form a rich compost. As the vast majority of Malawians derive their livelihoods from agriculture, the soil quality is poor and fertilizer very scarce, the impact on rural livelihoods of this initiative could be significant.
In 2002, we initiated a water point mapping project to determine the equity of distribution of water services to rural communities and the functionality and sustainability of these facilities.
This project has been vital to planning and coordinating future work required nationally to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), targets agreed by all governments to halve the proportion of people without access to safe water and effective sanitation from 1990 to 2015.
Download the Malawi country information sheet ( PDF 312K)
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What we do
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