Inequalities give rise to risky settlements

In 2009, Peter Maluwa, 42, departed Waruma Village, Traditional Authority Mkhumba in Phalombe District for Blantyre City in search of a job.

However, city life was hard and chancy piecework could hardly sustain his family of four.

“I couldn’t afford a decent place to stay, so I ended up renting a dilapidated house in the slopes of Soche Hill,” he says.

In 2014, the father of two, who sells sugar and other groceries in his neighbourhood, secured land in the community battered by landslides amid Cyclone Freddy in March 2023.

His two-bedroom house survived the tragedy when a massive rock from the hilltop lost momentum after crashing into a neighbour’s house.

“We knew the area was a disaster waiting to happen, but we had no choice. Most of us live here because we cannot afford homes and land in safe settlements,” he says.

This highlights the agony of low-income earners as the allure of city lights and better economic opportunities fuel the exodus from rural areas.

The predominantly youthful population escaping widespread poverty and unemployment often end up in degrading living conditions. Worsening urban poverty pushes them to take shelter in unplanned locations where the risk of disaster looms large.

This persists as the government invests more in urban growth than developing rural communities where 84 percent of the population lives, according to the 2018 census.

This has transformed the urban centres into islands of civilisation, industry, commerce, education and entertainment.

Yet Section 13 of the Constitution requires the government to promote the welfare and development of the country’s rural majority as a yardstick of national policy.

The supreme law obliges policymakers “to enhance the quality of life in rural communities and recognise rural standards of living as a key indicator of the success of government policies”.

However, the rush to town keeps pushing multitudes fleeing rural poverty into disaster-prone zones as they cannot afford safe locations. The risky zones include steep slopes, river banks and hillsides.

Cyclone Freddy exposed the neglected inequalities as landslides and flash floods ripped homes in Soche Hill, killing more than 100 people as they washed away anything in the trail of destruction.

The silent crisis, fuelled by poor urban planning and laxity in law enforcement, has given rise to illegal settlements along flood-prone rivers and hillsides susceptible to landslides.

The landslides amplified public demands for the government to relocate people who encroached into the protected forest.

During the two weeks of national mourning, Vice-President Saulos Chilima said relocating the survivors from risky settlements could avert and minimise disasters.

The Department of Disaster Management Affairs says densely populated mountainous places and along streams are particularly prone to flooding and mudslides.

Population pressure worsens the hazards through deforestation, land degradation, poor land use planning and construction on steep slopes.

The signs of the times were clear when the cyclone dumped rocks and muddy floods on the Soche Hisettlements of Soche Hill.

Blantyre City Council director of town planning and estates services Costly Chanza says if councils took over all the land within their borders, they would easily enforce the dos and don’ts.

“The challenge remains that the few pieces of land handed over to the city council cannot meet the demand for people to build residential plots,” he says.

The fierce scramble for safe plots in planned locations pushes have-nots to disaster-prone zones.

“Our plea is that the areas in the urban peripherals should also be handed over to city councils for us to subdivide, formalise and develop them into residential plots,” Chanza implores

He also asked the Department of Forestry to plant trees in the hugely deforested hills such as Soche when the cyclone survivors move to safe zones.

Director of forestry Titus Zulu backed the call for relocation and resettlement of the survivors, saying Soche Hill remains a protected forest reserve.

“We don’t allow anybody to encroach, but some people obtained a court order restraining us from taking action,” he says.

In 2014, sixty-one concerned residents obtained an injunction restraining the city council and authorities from implementing a Blantyre Magistrate’s Court order to demolish houses and expel them within six months.

Zulu said once the legal gag is out of the way, authorities will embark on tree planting and leaving stumps to sprout again.

“We already have partners willing to assist us with the exercise,” he states.

However, the forest protector-in-chief bemoans that the country’s cities are poorly planned and scantily provide vital services such as water, electricity and waste management.

This contradicts the Malawi 2063 long-term vision for well-planned urban centres with sustainable land use, including the protection of biodiversity of natural ecosystems.

However, economist Sane Zuka, from the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences, suggests that greater investment in rural development can lift the pressure off bursting towns and cities.

“The youth should be integrated into the agricultural investment and the value chain should be able to respond to create employment within the rural setting. That way, rural-urban migration will be contained,” he says.