Developing a framework of social audit for evaluating projects on climate resilient agriculture in Malawi

Abstract

Social audit as a tool for evaluating development projects and has been found to be efficient for appraising projects in various sectors like health, natural resource management, agriculture, community development, water sanitation and hygiene, land conservation etc. In spite of the interventions by governments and non-governmental organization to ensure food security, agricultural development projects in most countries around the world had been affected with number of issues including climate change, corruption, lack of participatory evaluation mechanism as well as poor involvement of communities in decision making processes. The scenario is not different in Malawi either, specifically Phalombe district which faces a number of climate change problems like floods and droughts throughout the year. The present study which followed expo-facto design was undertaken to assess the effectiveness of projects on climate resilient agriculture that are implemented in Phalombe, Malawi. The study analyzed the outcomes, constraints and impact of selected projects and evolved a framework of social audit for evaluating such projects. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and the results have been presented quantitatively and descriptively. A total of 120 respondents from three Extension Planning Areas of Tamani, Kasongo and Mpinda were purposively selected for the study since they had participated in climate resilient agriculture projects. The sample also included 15 staff from the three NGOs that were selected for the study. It was found that 96 female farmers (78.3%) and 24 males (21.7%) had participated in the study which showed that more women were taking part in climate resilient agriculture projects compared to men. The research also revealed that manypeople who participated in climate resilient agriculture projects were married and most of them had education upto primary school level (84.2%). Secondary level education was found to have been acquired by 8.3% of the total respondents. Lower level of education was found to contribute to poor demanding of transparency and accountability from NGOs. Assessment of the agreement of respondents on severity of constraints showed that Kendall’s coefficient of concordance W= 0.5, significant at 1 per cent which proved that there was high degree of concordance among the 120 respondents in ranking the constraints according to their importance. The major constraints identified by the beneficiaries were: drying up of water resources, drought/ flood, small quantity of food, late delivery of inputs and poor involvement in decision making The results also showed that both beneficiaries and stakeholders agreed that AEDO and AEDC, NGO staff, Village Headman, Lead farmer, VCPC, ACPC, VDC, Community Policing, ASHP and Community Development Assistant should be part of social audit process. The components identified for social audit of climate resilient agriculture included training programmes, muster rolls, materials procured, input distribution, cash distribution and funding. Based on the study it could be proposed that all actors mentioned in the study should be part of the process. The framework of social audit formulated as part of the study suggested the important aspects that should be subjected to social audit. This would help devise efficient ways of conducting social audit of climate resilient projects in Malawi as it had been evolved through a participatory process involving all the stakeholders of climate resilient development projects in agricultural sector.