The initial design for the Malawi Environmental Monitoring Program (Malawi Environmental Monitoring Program) was completed in April 1993. While implementation activities commenced in August 1993, full implementation began in October of that year with the arrival of a senior GIS and environmental monitoring specialist as expatriate technical advisor to the then Department of Research and Environmental Affairs (DREA).

Since that time DREA has undergone considerable changes in its placement within government, its organizational status, and staffing. Established under the Office of the President and Cabinet in 1983, DREA was transferred to the Ministry of Health and Environment in May 1994. With the September 1994 reorganization of government and creation of numerous new ministries, DREA was elevated to ministerial status and renamed as the Ministry of Research and Environmental Affairs (MOREA).

While the professional staff of the Environmental Affairs section of DREA consisted of two officers at the time of program conception, a number of additional establishment positions and non-establishment (temporary) positions have since been added. At the present time, there are four establishment positions (Coordinator, Deputy Coordinator, two Professional Officers) of which three are filled and a total of eleven non-establishment positions which have been authorized by the Government in support of project and program activities financed by international donor organizations. Since in each case a condition of external financing has included the creation of new posts, Environmental Affairs staff and donors share the expectation that these "temporary" positions will be converted into part of the official establishment for the Ministry by the end of each of the projects. It should be noted that due to the increasing budgetary constraints facing the GOM and IMF (and other donor) concerns regarding the size of the public sector wage bill, the creation of additional establishment posts is problematic.

Some of the technical assumptions underlying program design have been revised in light of information acquired during implementation. The rate of adoption of burley tobacco production was not as high as anticipated, some data for the selected monitoring sites was not available, and the initial selection of catchments was altered. The lack of complete aerial photography for all five watersheds and the inability to determine individual field boundaries from the aerial photography that was available has also required a rethinking of field methods for data collection and the technical analyses that can be performed. Despite or perhaps because of these changes from initial expectations, the MEMP staff and technical advisors have demonstrated a strong degree of flexibility and problem-solving dexterity, allowing them to pull together a solid program for the intensive monitoring of changes in key environmental parameters in the selected watersheds.

While the initial design of the MEMP has undergone considerable refinement during the first year of implementation, the purpose and objectives of the program remain unchanged.

The core purpose and principle justification for MEMP is to monitor the potential environmental impacts of increased smallholder production of burley tobacco sought by the USAID-financed Agricultural Sector Assessment Program. The objective of the Malawi Environmental Monitoring Program, as specified in the initial design, is to "strengthen the technical and institutional capacities of DREA and line agencies in order to: (a) answer the specific questions relating to the possible environmental impact of smallholder burley tobacco production; and (b) build a broader technical capacity upon which a viable national EIS [environmental information system] can be based."

MEMP adopts a unique and challenging approach to meet these objectives. The program seeks to develop a decentralized capability to conduct environmental monitoring by strengthening capacity first at the level of the GOM technical agencies involved in natural resources and environmental management, and second at the level of the resource user through the incorporation of local farmers in environmental monitoring activities and the introduction of a farmer-based environmental monitoring and evaluation system (FEMES).

This approach encourages sustainability in environmental monitoring by working closely with the agencies that have existing capability and responsibility in this area, while at the same time strengthening the technical capacity of the agency responsible for coordinating environmental planning, management, and monitoring in Malawi (MOREA). By adopting a decentralized approach to capacity building rather than centralizing all support and technical capacity in one structure, it is possible to cement the link between monitoring and mitigation, between analysis and action, with a realistic expectation that technical agencies and resource users alike will perceive the benefit to them of investing in and assuring the continued operation of environmental monitoring as a core strategy in obtaining their respective objectives.

The key technical agencies collaborating with DREA in MEMP are:

• Land Resources & Conservation Branch/Land Husbandry (LR&CB)
• Departments of Forestry and National Parks and Wildlife (DF/NPW)
• Department of Water (DOW)
• Department of Surveys (DOS)
• Department of Meteorology (DOM)
• Malawi Bureau of Standards

The Department of Fisheries has also benefited from training in GIS as part of the MEMP institutional strengthening program. These technical agencies are involved in MEMP activities at both the national and field level. Furthermore, staff members from the Agricultural Development Districts (ADD) in which the monitoring sites are located are also integrated into environmental monitoring activities.

The project design called for the establishment of intensive monitoring systems in a set of five catchments dispersed in different regions of the country. While the selection of the catchments was based on criteria that assured a broad range of agroecological, production, and geographic conditions, the catchments retained should be considered exemplary rather than representative of Malawi’s environmental and ecological diversity. In addition to the establishment of intensive monitoring sites, MEMP has sought to develop analytic capacity and a methodology of multisectoral collaboration in undertaking environmental monitoring activities.

Despite substantial delays in procurement and shipping of equipment, the designation of Desk Officers by some technical agencies, and the hiring of personnel for the environmental monitoring unit in DREA, the program has taken form and some monitoring data is now being collected in all five of the watersheds. It should be possible to complete all remaining monitoring sites and commence data collection prior to the onset of the rainy season.

The environmental monitoring system being developed under MEMP has four key components:

• GIS training
• Development of EM technologies
• Capacity building in line agencies
• Capacity building in host agency (DREA)

A brief review of each of these components is provided in the following sections.

The training program developed and executed by Clark University has been very well received by participants and their immediate supervisors. Interviews with a number of participants in either the introductory, the intermediate or in both training sessions revealed a great deal of excitement and strong interest in the content of the training and its potential for addressing key issues in their respective agencies. Support was also strong for GIS training among their immediate supervisors. As results from the training are introduced back into the technical agencies in the form of completed projects, maps, and presentations of the results of spatial analysis, it may be expected that the utility of GIS in addressing technical concerns will be further underscored. This has been demonstrated to be the case in the Dept. of Forestry. The GIS project to map the Chongoni Forest Plantation that was selected by GIS training participants from the DOF planning unit has caught the interest of staff members in the Forest Development Division and was commented on as a very useful application by the Deputy Chief Forestry Officer for Support Services.

The development of analytic capabilities in GIS is perhaps the focus of Clark University’s efforts, but is only part of the contribution they are making to the Malawi Environmental Monitoring Program. Their training approach encourages students to develop a better understanding of the uses of data and in the methodologies that may be employed to present and analyze environmental issues related to environmental monitoring as well as to specific sectoral concerns. Two more training sessions are planned under the current MEMP activity. By the end of the planned set of training courses, considerable progress will have been made toward establishing a broadly based GIS capability in Malawi.

A core component of the environmental monitoring program is to develop and field test a number of relatively simple, effective and affordable monitoring technologies. These technologies, such as soil erosion control plots, soil chemistry analysis, water quality assessment, and rainfall measurement are not new to most of the technical agencies, though they may not have been introduced in their current form in Malawi. MEMP’s contribution is (a) to test and adapt environmental monitoring technologies to field conditions in Malawi, (b) to develop a methodology of inter-agency collaboration in the monitoring of critical environmental variables, and (c) to support the analysis of the resulting data by the relevant agencies’ technical personnel and MOREA staff.

Installation of monitoring equipment in the catchment areas has not progressed as rapidly as hoped. Delays in the transfer of funds for some activities has hindered implementation. A more serious problem was posed by the lack of cement from authorized sources to reinforce the soil pits and automatic water monitoring infrastructure. The Accounts section of the ministry has acted effectively to facilitate accelerated purchasing from other sources with proper expenditure documentation. Barring further complications, all monitoring infrastructure should be completed before the end of the current month (November 1994).

It is useful to underscore the practical application of the MEMP approach to decentralized capacity building for sustainable environmental monitoring. Rather than placing monitoring implementation capacity under a newly created multisectoral agency, the approach applied here is to bring the key sectoral agencies with existing capabilities together in a flexible, coordinated, system for cross-sectoral monitoring and analysis. This enhanced sectoral capacity may be used to address pressing technical concerns relevant to a given ministry or agency, while meeting the technical needs of monitoring environmental conditions that transcend sectoral boundaries.

Capacity building is being accomplished through the provision of specialized equipment such as computers, printers, plotters and digitizing tables required for GIS analysis and laboratory supplies for soil and water chemistry analysis. Limited personnel support has also been provided, primarily for assistance in laboratories. Budgetary support is provided based on budgets drawn up and submitted by the implementing agencies to cover running costs, manual labor, equipment, field expenses, and transport (fuel and limited maintenance for agency vehicles) directly related to monitoring activities. In addition to the GIS training program provided by Clark University, practical in-service training is being provided by technical specialists from the University of Arizona in environmental monitoring technology and farmer-based environmental monitoring and evaluation.

Early experience with financing implementation activities directly through the environmental agency proved to be time consuming and undercut the decentralization approach propounded by the environmental monitoring program. By mid-1994, implementation financing had been decentralized to the implementing agencies. Each agency is now responsible for developing its own budget proposal, and then managing the funds provided directly to them by MOREA. This has allowed for more timely provision of funds, in some cases, and has also placed responsibility for efficient management of funds on the collaborating institutions rather than on MOREA. One lesson learned from this action is that MOREA is not alone in experiencing administrative problems in funds management. The implementing agencies have also had to acknowledge deficiencies in their own systems, resulting in a more balanced and realistic expectations of MOREA’s performance.

A critical factor that will influence the sustainability of MEMP’s efforts to develop a decentralized monitoring capability is the extent to which environmental monitoring is perceived as a core part of the mandate or mission of each technical agency concerned. EM is a new activity and has yet to build the level of visibility and political support required to ensure its continued funding under conditions of budgetary constraint. If EM is perceived primarily as serving the mission of MOREA but as distinct from the core interests of the line agencies, it is highly likely that the willingness of these agencies to commit scarce budgetary and personnel resources will dissipate. On the other hand, to the extent that EM is seen as contributing to the accomplishment of an agency’s core mandate, it will be more likely to receive the necessary political and material support.

Interviews with senior technical staff and department-level officials revealed a generally positive acceptance of the relationship of EM to the mission of their respective agencies. The preservation and enhancement of aquatic and riparian environments, for example, is one of the three key objectives of the water sector as laid out in the Water Department’s May 1994 document, Water Resources Management Policy and Strategies. Monitoring of water quality and of the environmental factors that contribute to its preservation or degradation is clearly linked to fulfilling this objective. In the case of the Department of Forestry, the MEMP approach to environmental monitoring provides a means of demonstrating the consequences of deforestation and/or the benefits to be derived from adopting practices that incorporate tree cover into the farming system. Similarly, the utility of the GIS techniques introduced under MEMP is being appreciated by other DOF division staff, as related in the example of the Chongoni Forest Plantation study cited above.

Despite such encouraging examples of the importance of environmental monitoring to collaborating agencies, it is clear that the process of internalization of this function is just beginning. The frequent changes in Desk Officers from the Department of Water and the Land Resources and Conservation Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture may signal a weak commitment to the EM activity. Furthermore, while the role played by some agencies, such as the Department of Surveys, is fully consonant with their mission, their contribution is more in the form of a service provided against payment than a function to be incorporated into their standard operations. That is to say, environmental monitoring per se is not an ongoing activity for all agencies, though their technical contribution is essential to the execution of an environmental monitoring program. This being the case, it may prove necessary to review the mechanisms available to provide adequate incentives for their continued participation.

The establishment of the environmental monitoring unit in MOREA has been hindered by the lack of Malawian professional staff. The first full-time Environment Officer was assigned on July 1, 1994, nine months after the arrival of the USAID-financed Technical Assistant for MEMP. A second staff member was recruited two months later. The lack of a formal counterpart in the early stages of the activity has placed undue implementation responsibilities on the Technical Assistant while underscoring the human resources and organizational deficiencies of the Environmental Affairs division. The institutional instability caused by the relocation and eventual reorganization of the department described in a preceding section further belabored an already weak administration.

With the recruitment of professional staff, the environmental monitoring unit in MOREA is beginning to develop the necessary competence to assure the effective coordination of field activities and to provide better support to the Desk Officers and other staff from the agencies involved in the monitoring program. Both of the Environment Officers assigned to the unit have visited the catchments, participated in meetings with farmers and field agents, and worked closely with some if not all of the Desk Officers from the implementing agencies. One Environment Officer has a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from a university in Botswana and is making progress in developing analytic skills including GIS that will be critical to the successful performance of the environmental monitoring unit’s mission. Nevertheless, the MEMP will require additional staff with solid quantitative analytic training. This issue is addressed within the context of MOREA as a whole in a following section.

The Malawi Environmental Monitoring Program has completed one year of implementation. The technical assistance component of MEMP was initially designed to extend through December 1995. With the signature of the second phase of the Agriculture Sector Assistance Program (ASAPII) in September of this year, support for environmental monitoring from USAID is expected to continue through 1998. The pilot or experimental aspect of the initial MEMP design must give way to a gradual and planned development of a national capability in environmental monitoring. For this to take place, the following issues must be addressed.

The model of environmental monitoring applied under MEMP to date is based on intensive monitoring of what are considered to be critical environmental indicators in five watersheds distributed across the country. As noted earlier, the selection of watersheds does not permit, and was not intended to permit generalization to all agroecological zones across the country. Rather, the selection of sites and the intensive monitoring approach as a whole was intended to provide experience and information that could be used in developing a national system and capacity for environmental monitoring. This approach has produced positive results to date in the form of the development and testing of specific environmental monitoring technologies and the gaining of experience in organizing and coordinating a multi-sectoral and multi-institutional system of data collection and analysis.

In the next phase of implementation it will be necessary to develop a national strategy for environmental monitoring that includes a comprehensive implementation program. It is recommended that MOREA appoint a multi-agency task force whose terms of reference include the review of EM alternatives, the establishment of objectives for the national system, the allocation of roles among MOREA and the key technical agencies, NGOs, private sector organizations, and local populations, and the development of a program for implementation of the strategy which includes scheduling of activities and resource requirements. This task force should also address the financing of environmental monitoring activities, including the responsibility of all agencies concerned in assuring financial and personnel resources for environmental monitoring.

The basis of an environmental monitoring strategy will include use of the environmental monitoring technologies developed under the first phase of MEMP. Additional technologies should be identified in collaboration with the technical agencies, research centers and institutions of higher education. Eventually, MOREA will have a "toolbag" of environmental monitoring technologies to draw from that are responsive to specific environmental conditions and monitoring objectives.

There is also a need for MOREA to undertake a process of determination of environmental priority areas for intensive monitoring. Some areas will be given high priority because of public or governmental concerns, while others may be ranked high due to environmental considerations, such as biodiversity conservation. The development of a list of environmental "hotspots" will assist MOREA in focusing its environmental monitoring resources while assuring responsiveness to pressing national concerns and priorities.

A methodology for developing more extensive and eventually national-level environmental data also needs to identified. Discussions between USAID and the Ministry of Agriculture have elicited some interest in the application of area frame sampling to one ADD as a test case for gathering environmental and agricultural data from sampling units that permit comparison over time of the same physical area. While this approach holds some promise, it will be only one of a number of tools for monitoring environmental conditions in Malawi.

Environmental monitoring is a key component of a national environmental information system (EIS). Other types of information, including sectoral policies, project and program interventions, socio-economic data, and relevant documents, databases, and analyses, are included in an integrated environmental information system. Such a system may be developed incrementally, as analytic capabilities, data availability, and financial resources permit.

While there is a tendency to think of EIS as existing in a central place, this need not be the case. A decentralized system can be developed that is based on linking data resources together in an environmental information network. The development of this type of system can be coordinated by MOREA without necessitating the creation of a costly and heavily staffed environmental information center. This approach is recommended, given the scarcity of technical and financial resources in the country. It is also in keeping with the decentralized approach taken to environmental monitoring which emphasizes the strengthening of sectoral capacity which is thereby multifunctional and applicable to a variety of sectoral concerns in addition to cross-sectoral environmental matters.

One of the "outputs" of EIS frequently mentioned by Malawian authorities is a State of the Environment report. Such a study would establish an important baseline against which to measure the effect of policy, programs and environmental factors over time. In keeping with the decentralized approach to capacity building, consideration should be given to contracting such a study out to Malawian institutions of higher education, NGOs, or the private sector. At the present time, only the former would likely have the minimum required technical resources to undertake such an activity. MOREA in any case does not now have nor is likely within the next few years to have adequate personnel and technical resources to devote to this activity.

It is important that consideration be given to alternative means of developing and sustaining environmental capabilities. Not all capacity should be based in public sector institutions, much less in MOREA alone. One important area for the development of capacity is in institutions of higher education. At the present time, no degree program in Environmental Sciences exists in Malawi. Nevertheless, there are relevant components of such a program, and interest in developing teaching and research resources, in a number of institutions, including Bunda College, Chancellor College, and the Polytechnic. Faculty from these institutions have developed proposals for improving their research and teaching resources. A coordinated plan for developing capacity needs to be elaborated, preferably with leadership from the University of Malawi and participation from all interested institutions.

There is a priority need to develop in-country training capacity in GIS. Since Clark University initiated the training program in GIS under MEMP, there has been a steady increase in interest in follow-up and additional training by participants and others who appreciate the utility of this approach to spatial analysis. GIS should be incorporated into the curriculum of any environmental science program that is developed. In the near future, however, consideration should be given to developing a training program in GIS in Malawi. This will be essential to assure a steady pool of specialists, given attrition rates in the country for people with such technical training, and will also permit in-service training for public sector technical staff.

Even prior to its transformation into a ministry, the Department of Research and Environmental Affairs was undergoing substantial changes in staffing and access to technical and financial resources. A total of four donor-funded activities are currently operating within MOREA, bringing additional staff and budgetary resources to what was a chronically underfunded and understaffed agency. While these activities, which include the NEAP secretariat, a UNDP-supported institutional strengthening project, the Malawi Environmental Monitoring Program, and the World Bank financed Agricultural Sciences Commission, are attached to MOREA, they have not been successfully integrated into the core functioning of the ministry. With the conversion into a ministry, it is essential that careful attention be given to staffing and technical capacity prior to launching any major programs or recruitment initiatives. Existing personnel, technical and financial resources need to be integrated into the day-to-day operations of the ministry as a prelude to developing a coherent staffing and training program for the ministry.

In the case of the environmental monitoring unit, there is a clear need for additional personnel with appropriate training in quantitative analysis and environmental sciences. An increase in the number of staff is not the key factor in performance. Rather, MOREA and its environmental monitoring unit should give precedence to hiring a small number of technically capable and experienced professional officers. A too rapid expansion in personnel numbers would quickly overwhelm the very weak management and administrative capacity of the Ministry and could jeopardize the reputation of MOREA.

Furthermore, all staffing decisions must take into consideration the very limited number of people with technical training in key fields related to MOREA’s mandate in environmental planning, management, regulation, and monitoring. All personnel recruited for MOREA will likely result in a decrease in capacity among line agencies. Skilled technical people in fields related to the environment are in very short supply. Already, the demand for these skills by donor organizations and international NGOs has pulled technical resources away from the public sector. Caution must be maintained to prevent undercutting of sectoral capabilities by "poaching" among the environmental Big Five: ecologists, natural resource management specialists, information sciences specialists, environmental economists, and soil and water conservation/forestry/agriculture specialists.

The Ministry of Research and Environmental Affairs suffers from the lack of a clear sense of mission, internal management systems, and organization-wide objectives. This is not a situation unique to this ministry, nor is it surprising given the relatively recent establishment of the agency, the level of institutional instability it has encountered, and the lack of experience in environmental matters in the country as a whole. Indeed, MOREA has reached a point in its institutional history where a period of stock-taking and internal assessment would be highly beneficial. It is important that the ministry undertake a conscious exercise in self-definition with the objective of establishing a mutually agreed upon and shared mission statement, a coherent and realistic mandate, and a clear sense of direction in pursuing its own objectives.

This aspect of self-definition is critical given the excessive interest in environmental matters on the part of external forces including donors, international NGOs, and domestic organizations and economic interests. At the present time, an outside observer cannot fail to note that the pace and direction of environmental policy and programming is being determined more by the financing agencies than by the ministry. While donors are adept at repeating their commitment to "assisting" the ministry and to widespread participation, the absence of a clear ministry agenda has allowed external organizations in essence to impose their own priorities and interests. It is time that the ministry assert its organizational primacy over its mandate and future by developing a sense of direction and purpose.

Another area of concern that has been mentioned in earlier sections is the need for management strengthening in the ministry as a whole and within the Environmental Affairs division. At the present time there is a lack of coordination among the different sections of the ministry. Senior staff are not informed of the substance of activities in which they are not directly implicated, and there is a lack of effective communication regarding internal management, personnel issues, and program developments. While some efforts are being made to address these issues, it will be necessary to undertake a thorough review of management systems as part of a management strengthening program for the ministry.

As an initial step, it is recommended that the ministry consider contracting with a management consulting firm or organization such as the Malawi Institute of Management for an assessment of management needs and the provision of targeted training for key personnel. This should be seen as an "in-house" activity, and not part of a larger effort to determine issues of placement, structure, or status within government. It may be possible to acquire external funding for such an effort, for example from USAID, while maintaining the focus on internal management needs.

The performance of technical activities within the ministry has also been undermined by deficiencies in administrative and support services. Support personnel are not responsive to the needs of specialized divisions within the ministry, resulting in an unfortunate tendency to establish parallel systems and/or withdraw resources from the ministry. This is most obviously the case in regard to the management of vehicles and in messenger and secretarial services for the activities receiving donor funding. Since the donor-financed activities also provide budget support to the ministry for administrative services, it is recommended that serious attention be given to resolving these problems, even if it should require changes in personnel. Donor representatives should establish a timeframe for effective action, for example 45 days, after which budget support for administrative services would be reconsidered.

At the same time, it is necessary to address the issue of incentives for performance and the match between skill levels and job requirements. Salaries for the least well compensated members of staff are slight in a period of rapidly escalating costs. Performance suffers when there are few incentives or rewards based on the quality of the effort made by an employee. It is recommended that a training needs assessment be conducted for all ministry staff, support and professional, and that a program of in-service and external training be established. While it may be difficult to alter financial incentives for government employees, it may be possible to improve their training and the conditions of employment in ways that may lead to improved performance.

In line with improving the performance of support staff, it is recommended that a uniform policy on computer hardware and software be established for the ministry and that training be provided to all interested personnel. Standardization on IBM based systems and MicroSoft Office software would have definite advantages, since they have been introduced to MOREA and the collaborating institutions by the Malawi Environmental Monitoring Program.