Shire River Basin Management Program — Community Environmental Conservation Fund, Malawi

The Shire River drains Lake Malawi and supplies roughly 90% of Malawi's hydropower plus water for over 350,000 people downstream, but upstream deforestation and poor farming practices were causing severe erosion. Financed by the World Bank and implemented by Malawi's Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development with technical support from Mott MacDonald, Phase I of the Shire River Basin Management Program (2012-2019) ran a Community Environmental Conservation Fund (CECF) from 2016 to 2018, forming 185 CECFs and paying communities a fixed $1,500 grant for gully rehabilitation, riverbank protection, forest restoration and improved farming.

Mott MacDonald independently confirms the programme delivered over 25,000 hectares of soil-and-water conservation work plus nearly 10,000 hectares of forestry restoration and more than 4,000 kilometres of stream and riverbank rehabilitation -- consistent with the World Bank's overall figure of more than 35,000 hectares of degraded watershed rehabilitated, reaching an estimated 350,000 beneficiaries.

An independent evaluation brief found early indications positive, with the CECF successfully motivating communities to act on their land-use plans, but noted candidly that the project has since closed and technical support ended, recommending a follow-up assessment to check whether rehabilitated land and community funds have persisted without that support.