Mid-Term review of the ' Support to the implementation of the Agriculture Sector Wide Approach and Green Belt Initiative' (2016)

Final report of the mid-term review mission of the programme of 'Support for the implementation of the Agriculture Sector Wide Approach-Support Project (ASWAp) and the Green Belt Initiative (GBI). 

The programme comprises two components as follows: (1) Support to implementation of the ASWAp, (2) and Support to Irrigation. In addition to these two components there is Unallocated Technical Assistance which is there to ensure smooth implementation of GBI and ASWAp-SP components.

The goal of ASWAp is to increase agricultural productivity with the aim of making Malawi a hunger free nation, enabling people to access nutritious foods, and increasing the contribution of agro-processing to economic growth. The GBI was formulated against a background of the country’s vulnerability to food insecurity and economic shocks due to overdependence on rain-fed agriculture. The GBI was therefore seen as a means of using the available land and water resources to increase irrigation farming thereby hedging against the negative effects of global climate change. The MGDS II, GBI and ASWAp policy objectives are therefore in line with the EU's policy objectives for development cooperation of reducing and eventually eradicating poverty consistent with the objectives of sustainable development and the gradual integration of the ACP countries into the world economy. Bilateral cooperation between the EU and Malawi for support to the implementation of ASWAp and GBl was through the 10th EDF National Indicative Programme (NIP).

In this general context, the EU commissioned an external mid-term review of the 2 programme' components to judge its success to date, draw out lessons from the experience, provide related recommendations and explore possibilities to improve the complementarity of the programme with other on-going projects.