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Victoria protects the trees

Victoria Banda hikes 24 kilometers to guard trees and fresh water. Along with other men and women from a group of villages in western Malawi, Victoria makes the uphill trek to patrol the wooded banks of a mountain reservoir and protect the trees from illegal loggers.

Many of the trees growing along the waterline were planted by Victoria and other members of a committee charged with protecting the water supply for some 10,000 people in a remote district of Mchinji. The trees stabilize the soil and keep moisture in the ground, preserving the reservoirís bounty of clean water. "Without it, we will perish," Victoria says.

Victoriaís committee monitors and maintains the reservoir, along with a network of pipes that bring clean water from the mountains to 72 villages in the valley below. Keeping the water clean is a complicated affair. "We have to make sure that people do not bring their cattle near the water source, we have to guard the trees from illegal logging, and we have to plant trees in areas where there are none," Victoria explains.

She does not begrudge the difficult task, however, because the new freshwater system has improved life for the districtís inhabitants in many ways. Before the system was put in, women in the villages had to walk for more than an hour to find water. "And the water was not clean," Victoria adds. "Now, we have fewer diseases, cleaner clothes and happier faces."

The construction of the reservoir and the delivery pipes is one of about 1,000 projects completed to date through a programme introduced by the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), a partner in the UN Development Group (UNDG). The programme identifies areas in need of development projects and provides partial financing. Local communities implement the projects themselves and supply the remainder of the funding.

The five-year programme in Malawi has a budget of US $30.7 million. UNCDF is contributing US $13.3 million to the programme, UNDP is providing US $9.4 million and the Malawi government US $8 million in kind. Local communities served by the projects contribute labour and materials.

In Victoriaís region, development committees from the 72 participating villages decided to spend a portion of the districtís development fund on the new freshwater system. Local committees, funded through contributions from village households, maintain the reservoir and network of pipes.

These village committees were able to undertake this ambitious project because the Malawi government has transferred development resources and decision-making down to local bodies. Officials in the country believe that locally elected councils can manage their natural resources and development planning more efficiently. UNCDF and UNDP have worked closely with the government throughout this decentralization process, which is being expanded to all of the country's 27 districts.

The ultimate goal is to help reduce poverty in Malawi by improving governance through broader citizen participation in decision making. In Mchinji, where Victoria and her fellow committee members decided for themselves to undertake the 24-kilometer hikes into the mountains to maintain the reservoir and guard its trees, it appears to be working.