AICC ANNUAL REPORT 2023

• January 10, 2024

This report serves as a beacon of our unwavering dedication to fostering sustainable development and social responsibility across the continent. In a world facing multifaceted challenges, the significance of corporate engagement in driving positive change cannot be overstated. At AICC, we are acutely aware of the pivotal role that corporations play in shaping the future of our continent.

AICC NEWSLETTER ON SPOTLIGHT INITIATIVE

The Tingathe Spotlight Initiative for women and adolescent girls project proposes to increase access to a comprehensive and well-coordinated GBV response services including livelihood support for survivors, Enhance knowledge and awareness of communities on GBV protection policies, procedures and accountability, promote Integrated homestead farming and production in Horticulture and Livestock among survivors of Gender Based Violence, engage survivors of GBV in Vocational Skills development on off farm technologies as well as promote Rural Enterprise development through promotion of non-conventional production and trade for income and employment creation for survivors of gender based violence in Dowa, Nkhatabay, Ntchisi and Mzimba districts. Here is the booklet that contains some of the impact stories that attests impact Tingathe Spotlight Initiative for women and adolescent girls project is bringing to the survivors in the target areas

OVERLOADED AGRICULTURE TRANSFORMATION AGENDA IN MALAWI: DEFLATED AT TAKE-OFF

We contend that agriculture transformation (AT) agenda in its present form is heavily overloaded and will sadly succeed in inaction and thinness of efforts. If we want AT in Malawi, let the agenda squarely fall in the abode of the same. Anything outside – nutrition, early childhood development, water and sanitation – should be tackled in their respective domains or must only come to the table as “meanstreatables” or crosscuttings...Here is the full reflection via this

MALAWI AGRO-DEALER VOLUME II

Welcome to the second edition of “Malawi Agrodealer” for African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC). This issue is dedicated to disseminate interventions and awareness on initiatives being done by AICC through the Agribusiness Acceleration Initiative (AAI). Lack of access to basic farm supplies has made it quite challenging for poor rural farmers to increase their yield or income, reinforcing widespread poverty. Here is the booklet that contains impact stories that attest some of the successes AAI has acomplish in Malawi..

GOLD IN LEGUMES (unsampled success stories)

The Legumes Development Trust (LDT) whose secretariat is housed within the African Institute of corporate Citizenship (AICC), is a coordinating body aimed at enhancing collaboration that would consolidate various efforts to develop a viable legume sector. Established in 2013 and registered in December 2014 the Legumes Value Chain through LDT was formed as a result of the realization that there was in adequate collaboration amongst stakeholders in the legumes sector. As part of attesting some of the success stories in the legumes sector, here is the booklet that comprise of different impact stories of legumes farmers in Malawi.

REFLECTION BRIEF ON BEYOND TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION

Technology adoption has greatly shaped agriculture throughout time. Humans have developed new ways to make farming more efficient and grow more food. More research has been done to find new ways to irrigate crops or breed more disease-resistant varieties. These iterations are key to feeding the everexpanding population with the decreasing freshwater supply. Technology transfer and dissemination in the agriculture sector, specifically to the farmers, has been one of the core responsibilities from private sector players to the public sector through non-governmental organizations. Now what will happen beyond the technology adoption?

HORTICULTURE IS MONEY (from their testimonies)

Small-scale horticulture farmers in Mndolera Extension Planning Area (EPA), have adopted the Micro Investment concept that comprise the drip irrigation technology and improved inputs as part of building resilience to climate change while enhancing production. The African Institute for Corporate Citizenship (AICC) introduced this concept to horticulture smallholder farmers in partnership with Norwegian Church Aid (NCA) under Commercial Agribusiness for Sustainable Horticulture (Cash) Project. The major goal of the project is to boost production and productivity to an extent where some of the profits can be re-invested for further growth. This booklet contains some of the success stories that attests the achievements registered through the CASH project.

EMPOWERED RURAL WOMEN SUCCESS STORIES

This booklet is a selection of stories depicting some of the successes, that AICC has registered through the Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) project. The project is promoting the participation of women groundnuts farmers through the development of women clubs concentrating on increasing groundnuts through climate smart technologies The project is expected to empower women farmers through participatory designing and user led innovations by linking the potential of user led innovations to enable women to design and develop their own labour saving agricultural tools, tailor made for their culture, soils and cropping systems. The project is implemented in Mchinji and Mzimba District. The stories specifically focus on the interventions that AICC has undertaken in strengthening women participation in strategic decision making, financial enhancement, change in livelihood and surge.

MALAWI AGRO-DEALER

Welcome to the first ever edition of “Malawi Agrodealer” for African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC). This issue is dedicated to disseminate interventions and awareness on initiatives being done by AICC through the Agribusiness Acceleration Initiative (AAI). AAI project is a project that is addressing some of the challenges that agrodealers are facing in Malawi through building capacity of SMEs to increase small agribusinesses turnover, profitability, enable small rural agribusiness, increase number of farmer suppliers/customers.

A REFLECTION BRIEF ON THE ADOPTION OF A TECHNOLOGY

For the past years, Malawi has been importing most horticultural produce from the neighboring countries. This has been the case because the production in the country is usually very low to carter for the growing population demand on the market. Currently, the production of horticulture crops solely depends on the smallholder farmers who mostly have small land holding capacity and limited resources.

WOMEN ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT (WEE) PROJECT MONITORING REPORT

African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC) through UN women with funding from standard Bank is implementing Women Economic Empowerment (WEE) programme in Mchinji and Mzimba Districts which aims at increasing productivity and access to market through climate smart agriculture technologies. The project targeted to develop a groundnuts value chain by concentrating resources on building the capacity of women smallholder farmers that are critical to the broadening of the agricultural sector in Malawi. Through the WEE project, AICC expands its mandate to stimulating and supporting private sector investment in the country's agricultural and rural market with specific focus on youths and women. Here is the monitoring project report that shows best practices, lesson learnt, challenges and milestone of the project.

TRULY ‘AT THE VERGE’: THE FUTURE OF WAREHOUSE RECEIPT SYSTEM IN MALAWI

We would like to formally acknowledge that our quoted phrase that WRS in Malawi is at the ‘verge’ of collapsing has drawn a lot of attention, contestation and review of prevailing evidence for or contra to the statement. As a chief advocate of the system for 10 years now, it should be noted at the outset that a proclamation of this nature has not been just an overnight process. It is a painful admission considering how much we have equally invested (time and advocacy wise) on this intervention. Faced with evidence in our possession, we had two options: put a cosmetic picture or make this painful admission. We have opted for the later largely to save-up on time and lobby for increased efforts towards any possible and viable alternative.

2020 COTTON MARKETING ILLUSION AND REALITIES

Cotton is one of the major agro-based foreign exchange earner in Malawi, However, for the past decade, cotton production in the country has been characterized by a steady decrease in production levels to as low as 10,000 Mt in 2018/19 season. The African Institute of Corporate Citizenship had noted the urgency of having a multi-stakeholder dialogue platform to provide space for cotton stakeholders to design innovative solutions for the development of the sector through public private partnerships.

AICC APRIL-JULY 2018 NEWSLETTER

Greetings and warm welcome to yet another year of the Corporate Citizenship. This is our first issue in the 2018/19 year and we couldn’t be more excited to have made it this far. Our last publication was in 2017 and it is surely like just yesterday when that was done. We are a proud team that wants to continue with this publication so that we disseminate news emanating from our various programmes and projects.

AICC DECEMBER 2017 NEWSLETTER

Welcome to the last edition for the year 2017 and the last but one edition for the 2017/2018 financial quarter. This edition focuses on major activities that the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC) has undertaken and also highlights some of the successes registered in the quarter..