New Alliance Policy Acceleration Support: Malawi (NAPAS: Malawi) Activity Quarterly Report January 1, 2018 to March 31, 2018

The activity is being implemented by Michigan State University (MSU) in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and the University of Pretoria (UP). NAPAS aims to enable the Government of Malawi to implement the policy reforms agenda it committed to under the New Alliance Country Cooperation Framework for Malawi. The policy reforms have the broader aim of improving the agriculture investment climate in Malawi through commercializing agriculture and increasing the role of the private sector in Malawi's agricultural sector. NAPAS has three components: Policy Formulation, Policy Communication, and Capacity Strengthening. The activity is being implemented in collaboration with various stakeholders, including the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MoAIWD), the Department of Agricultural Extension Service (DAES), and the Competition and Fair Trade Commission (CFTC). During the quarter, the NAPAS team made significant progress in the policy formulation component. The draft National Fertilizer Policy (NFP) was internally validated with senior management of the MoAIWD on 19th February 2018. The meeting was chaired by the Minister of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development, who urged the team developing the policy to validate it by mid-March 2018. The NAPAS team also held a meeting with the Director of Agricultural Research Services to address comments made by senior management of the ministry. After the comments were incorporated in the draft, an external validation workshop was held on 28th March, 2018 at Ufulu Gardens in Lilongwe. The NAPAS team also worked closely with the DAES to finalize the Agriculture Sector Food and Nutrition Strategy (ASFNS). A meeting was convened on 21st and 22nd March, 2018 at NAPAS' offices where the NAPAS team and representatives from the DAES worked on several sections of the Strategy document. The updated document was shared with other members of the drafting team, particularly Stacia Nordin of the USAID SANE activity. SANE and members of DAES worked on the document further in April 2018. In addition, the NAPAS team held a national consultation workshop on the Farmer Organization Development Strategy (FODS) on 27th February, 2018 at Lilongwe hotel. A total of 76 (19 female) participants attended the consultation. The workshop was officially opened by the Controller of Agricultural Extension and Technical Services (CAETS) Dr. Albert Changaya. Input from the consultation workshop has been consolidated and will be incorporated in the FODS draft during a writeshop that is scheduled to take place at La-Riviera Hotel in Mangochi from 3rd to 6th April, 2018. The NAPAS team also conducted a review of the Special Crops Act and the Agriculture General Purposes Act. In the quarter, the team developed an inception report that was presented to key stakeholders on 14th March, 2018 at Wamkulu Palace in Lilongwe. A total of 21 (4 female) stakeholders participated in the meeting. The NAPAS team also held a meeting with the CFTC on 22nd January 2018 to discuss the development of Contract Farming legislation. Furthermore, the NAPAS team collected additional information on macadamia, mango, banana, and tomato value chains between January and February, 2018. This information will be used to beef up the value chain studies and also to inform development of a Horticulture Policy and Strategy that the Ministry has asked the NAPAS team to support. The COP met with staff of the USAID supported Agricultural Diversification (Ag-Div) Project and shared with them preliminary results of the value chains that NAPAS has conducted. The Ag-Div team was strongly interested in the report of the Macadamia value chain as this is a crop they are interested in supporting. The NAPAS team also met a person from FAO (Ms. Alethia Cameron) who was interested in the value chain studies NAPAS has been conducting. She shared the Pigeon pea value chain study report and will be sending the rest of the reports as they get finalized. In return, FAO shared their report on tea. The NAPAS team also had a meeting with Vikramjeet Sharma and Sally Mansour from Technoserve who are working on the value chains promoted by MSIKA Project (a US Department of Agriculture-funded project).