The last time Malawi produced its State of the Environment and outlook report was in 2010.
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Consultations in developing the latest one are underway involving various stakeholders such as Parliamentarians, the media and civil society organisations (CSO)’s
According to Dr. Lucy Mtilatila board Chairperson for the development of the National state of environment outlook for Malawi, the process started in March this year with the orientation of potential authors on the methodologies to be used.
Thereafter they’ll get the authors through a call of nomination for them to apply and in June they’ll be oriented to look at the proposed outline which has 11 chapters and anticipate a minimum of four authors per chapter.
Mtilatila acknowledged the gaps saying this is one of the challenges Malawi is failing to respond to environmental pressures.
“We can say we are late but we’re not very very late, we can still catch up. So this is the report that will help us bring out issues, challenges to see the status; how things are and the trends which have been happening over the years.
“Actually in this we are looking at issues to do with air and climate, we’re looking at fresh water, land and soil, biodiversity. So we’ll look at all these aspects because we believe if we look at these aspects, they will also entail to see how livelihoods are changing, how the energy food security are changing in Malawi”.
She spoke on some of the reasons behind the delay in producing these reports.
“We need almost like 40 plus authors, putting people together that large numbers it’s not easy and it needs lots of resources, commitments, time and everything. It’s a comprehensive report which is not something that you can just do it hurriedly otherwise it may miss some of the important issues.
“It takes a while. Its issues of funding, its issues of availability of expertise. So looking at all that that, that’s what has delayed for us to develop this report earlier enough. But we believe after producing this one, we should be able to update it at very shorter intervals.”
Malawi Environmental protection authority (MEPA) is leading the process while the Norwegian Government and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) are providing technical support.
UNEP’s Director of Disasters and conflicts branch with the ecosystem division Cecelia Aipira noted the environment contributes to every aspect of Malawians livelihoods which are all being impacted by a number of drivers.
She however said this is not a gloom and doom messaging but about providing critical actions to achieving sustainable development goals in the future.
“We expect this National environment report to take about 18 months, it’s a lengthy process because we want to have really comprehensive understanding of the different aspects of environment, soil, air, water and so on and so forth.
“We’re also taking a little bit longer because we really want this process to be owned. For example, today we’re having the session with the media in Malawi because we want to make sure that the findings of this report are communicated well. The implications of this report are understood from a social economic development perspective and its critical then that the media is with us”.
