Swedish Embassy Africa Regional Development Cooperation head Joachim Beijmo has said Women Economic Empowerment in the Cotton Value Chain project, intends to increase cotton production and improve women involvement in the cotton value chain.
The Addis Ababa, Ethiopia-based envoy said this during a progress assessment visit in Salima.
“So far, we have seen very good results here in Salima,” he said.
Beijmo said the three-year project, being implemented by We Effect, intends to increase gender equality and empowerment of 9 600 women and youth in the cotton sub-sector.
The project is being implemented by We Effect and African Institute of Corporate Citizenship (AICC) with funding from the Swedish Embassy.
We Effect country manager Esther Chirwa said since they started the project in the district, cotton production has increased although the industry is still producing below the 50 000 metric tonnes (MT) target.
She said: “We started this project in 2019 at a very low rate, but considering the results we got, we extended it for another three years because of the commitment and satisfaction of the donor on this project.”
Cotton Council of Malawi executive director Cosmas Luwanda agreed that the cotton industry has been facing numerous challenges due to inadequate investment.
“We are structuring the cotton market so that farmers should be able to benefit following new investment. We are, therefore, developing a seed strategy so that farmers have easy access and supply of high quality seeds,” he said.
