Malawi, January 2026

Experience of Direct contacts with Development Partners (DPs) for Mobilizing Funds for Implementation of NRDS in Malawi and Zambia

Background

Zambia and Malawi have developed their National Rice Development Strategies (NRDS) and respective Concept Notes (CN). However, the CNs were not transformed into comprehensive projects to respond to the expectations of the NRDS. To overcome this situation, the Reporter visited the two countries to interact with DPs, Higher Government Officials and Private Sector to better understand the main reasons for the slow pace in the implementation of the CNs and explore potential avenues to accelerate the efforts to achieve the targets set for CARD Phase 2.

Methodology

The mission was divided in two parts Zambia (18 to 23) and Malawi (26 to 31) January 2026. In both countries, the modus operandi consisted in convening meetings with DPs at their own Offices in Lusaka and Lilongwe respectively. The meetings were previously arranged by the NRDS-TF.

Meeting with JICA in Zambia and Malawi respectively

The discussions in each meeting focused on CARD Phase 2 targets taking into consideration current levels of production against 56 million tons and the yield 3.0 t/ha by 2030. Thereafter the Rice Focal Person in each country introduced the summary of the Concept Notes and later the DPs were requested to elaborate on their perceptions for the slow pace in meeting CARD targets around the three following questions:

• Are the DPs not contributing enough resources to respond to the implementation of NRDS Projects?
• Is the Research system not generating adequate technologies to produce tangible impacts?
• Are government policies not conducive to bringing tangible results?

In light with above questions, the discussions were led to explore what should be done to accelerate the pace to meet the CARD Phase targets with involvement of DPs, Private and Public Sectors and determine potential avenues to accelerate the pace towards CARD Phase 2 targets.

 Summary of   findings and lessons learned from the missions

• Through DPs visits, the critical importance of resource mobilizationhas become increasingly clear
• eetings DPs seem to suggest that there are several ongoing initiatives not labelled to NRDS leading to wrong perception of what is happening on the ground
• There is need to undertake an evaluation of current NRDS to map-up all activities and produce recommendations to streamline interventions, improve coordination and avoid overlapping of actions by different DPs.
• A consensus reached on the importance of rice as a strategic crop for food security and economic growth in Zambia and Malawi as opposed to maize and wheat as traditional cereal crops in the region.
• The Permanent Secretaries of the Ministry in both countries reaffirmed their dedication to ensuring that rice remains one of the priority crops for national food security and economic transformation.

Challenges and Lessons Learned

• Formulating Projects requires the Ministry of Agriculture/Government to issue an official request to each Development Partner is essential.
• In some countries, it is possible that the Minister of Agriculture or the Permanent Secretary and any other high level may not be sufficiently aware of the NRDS or may not fully understand the contents. In such circumstances, the issuance of an Official Letter / Request is unlikely to occur and very low possibility to apply for the national budget can be expected. Therefore, submitting the document to a higher level is not enough for implementation of NRDS Projects.
• Organizing meetings with DPs demonstrated a practical value of the NRDS Task Force as a platform not only for technical coordination but also for active donor engagement and funds mobilization. This was the first engagement and strong milestone for further development of rice sub-sector in Malawi and Zambia.

The meeting with WFP Malawi country office

In Lilongwe, Malawi

The meeting with JICA Malawi office

The meeting with AGRA Malawi country office

The meeting with EU and UNDP officers in Lilongwe

The meeting with African Development Bank (AfDB) Malawi country office