Thomas Baldwin learns about the work of an African Christian Aid campaigner who highlights the impact of climate change and the importance of gender justice.

THE historic connection between the countries and churches of Scotland and Malawi is well-established, and it’s a connection which Pansi Katenga was happy to celebrate when she visited Scotland in May.

Pansi is Christian Aid’s country manager for Malawi, so has first-hand experience of the difference that Scottish support made during last year’s food shortage.

The drought, which followed the previous year’s catastrophic flooding, left 6.7 million people – over a third of the Malawian population –without access to sufficient food.

An emergency appeal by four Scottishbased charities – Christian Aid Scotland, EMMS International, Oxfam Scotland and SCIAF – raised nearly £500,000, which was matched by the Scottish Government.

Pansi said that the donations from Scotland had helped Christian Aid keep communities together and secured the long-term future of some of their projects.

”We have a very strong relationship with Scotland, and we currently receive funding from the Scottish Government but also receive lots of support from churches from Scotland. It was significant for me to thank our supporters for the response (to the drought appeal),” she said.

“We have a programme, funded by the Scottish Government, building resilience among communities and activities include construction of solar powered irrigation sites. Construction had just been completed but many of the people in those areas were affected by the droughts.

“We were able to prevent people from leaving the community to look for work elsewhere, and after three months they had their crops ready. Areas which did not have this long-term resilience programme had to have food aid given to them for nine months.

“Now those communities are sustainable, they are in their second cycle of food production.”

Because they were able to support those communities through the short-term crisis, she said, in the long term they should not need that sort of aid again: “We have an exit strategy that has broken the cycle of poverty. We shouldn’t have to give these people food aid again. We should be able to say ‘we have done our part, this is an asset handed to the community’, and we can move on and help somewhere else.”

Pansi is a Malawian who recently returned to the country after 20 years working abroad for the UN and other International organisations: “The role I had in the UN was a regional one. Now, I am taking the lessons I learned and helping my own country. It’s good to be back working in the community that I understand. We (Malawians) are the ones that can provide solutions because we know the people: they are not statistics, they are relatives.”

She said that this year’s rainfall was better and food production was up: “Assessments are going on but it looks promising. There’s a 36 per cent increase on last year’s production, so although there will be pockets of hunger in some parts, the general observation is that Malawi, and southern Africa in general, have had a better crop and will be much better this year.”

However, she warned that Malawi, and southern Africa in general, was prone to the unpredictable weather patterns caused by climate change; which is why Christian Aid’s work on improving the resilience of communities is essential.

In addition to the two solar powered irrigation schemes funded by the Scottish Government (four more have been funded by the UK government), Christian Aid’s partners are helping farmers to become more commercial. “It’s a market-based response. We are saying ‘instead of growing maize which you just consume, produce a crop that has value, sell it at market and you will have enough money to buy food, to cater for health and education needs’.

Instead of growing maize, which is dependent on a good rainy season, farmers are being trained to produce more drought-resistant crops such as pigeon peas, which require less water, are less labour intensive and mature very quickly. They are also helping the farmers to work collectively, in order to get better prices for their produce. Pansi said: “The problem is that the farmers are not organised. We want to train farmers to work as a group, that’s when they will have bargaining power. And also we’re showing them how to produce the right crop varieties in the right volumes in order to respond to the market demands.

“And as it’s mainly women farmers, we will empower women economically and also kids’ wellbeing will be enhanced.”

This is particularly important for households with young and adolescent girls, who Pansi says suffer educationally at times of hunger.

“When crisis strikes, girls can be forced to leave school, either to get married or to work as domestic servants.

“So we’re promoting nutrition and economic interventions to keep girls in schools, and we offer households with girls of adolescent age an extra support so that there is no need for them to be taken out of school.”

As a woman in a position of authority in a patriarchal society, Pansi obviously relishes the gender justice aspects of Christian Aid’s work, and the example she sets to girls in Malawi.

“I am becoming a role model to other Malawian girls, who would never have thought a fellow Malawian could head an international organisation. It’s a maledominated, expatriate-dominated area of employment but I think by having left Malawi, lived in London, lived in Zimbabwe and South Africa, and then come back, it almost demystifies the fears that young people may have to leave home and explore new opportunities abroad.”

She says that while women are still disempowered in Malawi, attitudes are changing. “Our own president, Professor Peter Mutharika is a He for She campaigner, Malawi also had a woman President H E Joyce Banda, so there are voices at the top saying that a woman is an equal partner. In addition, we have some traditional chiefs who are also supportive.

“The pigeon peas programme is led by women, who have to sometimes be away to participate in market research for example, and we are working with their husbands to support their wives’ economic empowerment and for them to realise that it’s okay to look after the children while the women are away.”

Pansi Katenga, Christian Aid Country Manager for Malawi. Photo: Christian Aid

Pansi’s own remarkable story came about because her own parents supported her in education. “I was very lucky,” she says. “My mother was a teacher and from a very early age she realised that she had to protect her daughters, and she worked very hard to make sure that I and my four sisters had access to education.

“My father grew up with an aunt who appreciated education and paid school fees for him to attend a church school. So I come from a family where both my parents knew that an uneducated daughter would be exposed to a lot of challenges, and were really supportive and did everything to make sure I and my sisters had access to secondary school and university education.

“I relied on the support of family, parents, extended family and friends, and that’s why for me going back to Malawi in a leadership position is a big honour. I can access platforms and influence necessary changes.

“Those changes involve not only trying to keep girls in secondary education, but supporting women to be economically to be empowered to make positive decisions about themselves or their families. We are also promoting female leadership at both grassroots and national levels: We want to support both men and women, but at the moment women are most disadvantaged so they are our priority. We are supporting those who are aspiring to become politicians in the national assembly or in their wards because if you have women lawmakers they will make friendly laws for women and support gender empowerment.”

And Pansi is helping extend that empowerment to the next generation, through her 13-year-old daughter Skyla, who is already a campaigner against child marriages.

“I am encouraging her and her friends to voice their concerns about this harmful practice, and what I have seen is that this inspires other girls in a less privileged position to feel encouraged to speak out for their rights. We will create a movement of girls who know their rights at a young age and can demand them of parents, teachers and community leaders.

“The future of Malawi is those young girls.”