Enumeration

Irene Wangaru Pamoja Trust – Kenya

Benson Osumba Federation – Kenya

Eliot Kibet Nairobi University: Mapping – Kenya

George Masimba Dialogue on Shelter - Zimbabwe

Conellia Lungu Federation - Zimbabwe

Erica Chikobvu Federation - Zimbabwe

Sheila Mudede Federation - Zimbabwe

Prisca Malunga Federation - Zambia

Betty Bwalya Federation – Zambia

Urban Poor Fund & Loans

Grace Kanini Federation – Kenya

Mary Kangi Federation – Kenya

Sazini Ndlovu Federation - Zimbabwe

Davious Muvindi Federation - Zimbabwe

SDI Evaluation

Rose Molokoane SDI

Joel Bolnick SDI

Gustavo Riofrio Evaluator – Peru

David Sogge Evaluator – Holland

Technical Support – Adobe Bricks

Luke Boshier South Africa

Kenya, Zambia, South Africa & Zimbabwe to Malawi Exchange Visit

The Kenya – Malawi exchange visit had initially been planned during the SDI Board meeting held in early February (Nairobi) where the Kenyan Muungano was to visit the Malawian Federation on the issues of loans. This visit had been scheduled to coincide with the evaluation, which then coincided with a need to conduct an enumeration survey in Mbayani – Blantyre by the Malawian Federation. Given the background of the Mchenga Fund in Malawi there was need to have the Zimbabwean Gungano team around so as to evaluate the progress the Malawian Mchenga team had done since their last visit to Zimbabwe (Feb 05) where they learnt about the operations of the Gungano Fund. The Kenyan team had to be separated in two so as to suit both these issues. The Zimbabwean enumeration team also came to provide support to this enumeration process whilst the Zambian team was to learn from this exercise as they are preparing for their own exercise soon in Livingston.

The Enumeration

The Kenyan team of 3 arrived on Wednesday 6^th of April and was met by the Malawian Federation members at the Airport who gave them some welcome as they were never used to such singing force from airport to the slum. They were then settled for the night in the slum of Mbayani where almost everything especially ablution are still beyond primitivity. It was difficult for them as they are not used to staying in areas where you sleep in a hall of 30 people, with members who sleep at one am and you have a wake up call from the Sheikh at 4am. To the delight of us all they survived and begun to take Mbayani as their home for 10 long exchange days. Thursday morning begun with welcoming the enumeration team from all parts of Blantyre, some members from Lilongwe, Mzuzu, Mzimba and Zomba. The training for the enumerators begun with the Benson Osumba holding the fort on the enumeration background, he was later joined by Connelia Lungu who managed the actual questionnaire. The Zimbabwean team of 4 and Zambian team of 2 arrived mid morning and then joined the training process. After lunch there was an inception meeting with officials from Blantyre City Assembly, Local Councillors, Chiefs, other NGOs and CBOs and the Federation. The City officials explained about the partnership we have and the need for this enumeration. As a similar meeting had been held at the City Assembly there weren’t that many questions except good will for the survey to go on well.

The survey begun on Friday around midmorning after briefings and division of members into groups. Lungu and George led the team on the enumeration, organising and directing all the groups and also mentoring some of the members she felt had leadership and interest in the enumeration process. Irene and Benson were working on the date base and data compilation and by the time they left we were able to carry on without them. Kibet was working on the mapping and after noting the vastness of the settlement he noted that the tape measure would not be able to produce a valid map. After discussions and negotiations we all settled for the option of using satellite images (aerial photos from the city are more than 15 yrs old) to produce a map that will also be used as a verification tool where the survey results will also be plotted on the map. The City Assembly of Blantyre will use this map as a base map for the upgrading programmes for Mbayani. All in all the enumeration and mapping teams from the three Federations imparted the much needed skills and enthusiasm to the Malawi Federation who have managed to take over the whole process without much support from CCODE.

The enumeration was met with a lot of problems that would not have been encountered by any experienced Federation. The Federation in Malawi begun its ties with the Blantyre City Assembly (BCA) in late 2004 and formalised this relationship with BCA and SDI in February 2005. During this period the BCA was chosen as a Cities Without Slums (CWS) city in Malawi and had to produce a Situation Analysis on the slum conditions of Blantyre by August 2005. This situation analysis would feed into an action plan for upgrading but it did not include any detailed information on the slum of Mbayani the one being targeted by CWS. We then felt that this was an opportunity not only to contribute to this process but also for the Federation to become an important stakeholder in any upgrading and housing programmes for the City. The short falls though were that the Federation had very few members in this community since the Federation in Blantyre is still very new with no strong leadership abilities and this particular community has just joined. This meant that the enumeration could not be sensitised enough, had to have support from members from other settlements in Blantyre and other cities and of cause SDI. When we noted that there was an opportunity to undertake this enumeration (given the positive response and relationship with BCA) we had no time and resources to adequately prepare for this exhaustive process. There was a huge under estimation on our part on the huge expanse and terrain of the settlement, which led to the process being to long and draining to the members. These and other issues led to almost all the older SDI Federations complaining about all the negative aspects of their exchange. Despite all the problems the SDI members were able to dedicate their all for 10 strong days and assist us in marking one of our historic moments thus the first enumeration survey to be held by the Malawi Homeless People’s Federation.

The enumeration is still ongoing having covered 12,000 households on very hilly terrain and with almost the same size being left. The mobilisation team is also overstretched, as there are calls from all corners of this vast settlement to have groups established.

The Mchenga Urban Poor Fund

The Federation in Malawi is working on this fund that is modelled along all the other funds within the Federation. This fund to date is only comprised of members contributions which are less than US$0.02 per member every month. To date there is about $5000 that has been contributed by the members and the Federation has been thinking along the lines of lending for business loans to the various groups. This led to a trip to the Zimbabwe Federation where they were holding their annual Gungano meeting. This was an exchange to learn how the Gungano Fund works, disbursements and how they could start a similar process in Malawi. This was a fruitful exchange as they came back and started implementing most of the issues they had learnt. The Zimbabweans came to assess their counterparts and the Kenyans were to share experiences and find synergies on the two funds Mchenga and Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT). In the words of Sazini, the Malawians had moved on and had set up structures from group to National level that would lead to a successful fund if well implemented. There was need though for some issues to be ironed out like the agreements and follow ups. She also noted that although the fund was still very small with almost nothing in it, the Malawians should start with very small loans that will give them training with low risks. There were differences though between AMT and Mchenga in that the Kenyans were not contributing to this fund whilst Malawians were, but the goals of this fund are the same, so synergies were thus found. The Malawian Mchenga team is currently working on its first disbursement that is about $200 to each group for 5 groups and it is hoped that lessons learnt from this would transfer into an overall difference in people’s lives through Mchenga Fund.

The Adobe Bricks (10-16^th.04.05)

Joel and Mark Swilling (Professor from Sustainability Institute: University of Stellenbosch) visited Blantyre, Malawi in December 2004 and one of the issues that came up during this visit was that of housing and bricks. Mark pointed out that they were using a stronger version of the bricks currently being used in Malawi. This culminated in an exchange visit where the Malawi Federation went to Stellenbosch to see the houses built with unburnt bricks. This was a successful exchange as the members were able to start visualising the kind of houses they would build using the Adobe bricks. The members then requested Luke Boshier who is working on these bricks with the Sustainability Institute to come to Malawi and see the conditions and what could be done, hence the visit by Luke.

Being a ‘practical’ person who does not believe in meetings he was able to have his bearings and started work on Sunday evening. This included working with the Federation on the sun dried bricks (this delayed though as he had to construct a mould on arrival as he was not allowed to board with his), plastering using lime, manufacture of oil paint using lime, salt and cow fat. All this was done in less than three days and the Federation was left convinced that this would be the way to go when they do start their housing process. When we left for Blantyre, Luke’s mission was to work with the suppliers of Lime and find out how they could feed into this process. He then managed to meet with the lime processors who were convinced about working together with the Federation on using lime as a major construction component.

Our housing processes will be greatly enhanced if Luke continues to provide technical support as he has practical solutions that we feel will lead to massive reduction in the prices that the poor in Malawi will have to pay for a house.

SDI Evaluation (10^th - 16^th April 2005)

10.04.05

The evaluation process in Malawi was divided into two thus Lilongwe first leg and Blantyre being the second leg. The evaluators accompanied by Rose and the Kenyan AMT team joined later by the Zimbabwe Gungano team received the Federation welcome therapy at the Airport all the way to Mtandile (the settlement where the Mchenga Fund exchange was to be held). After lunch and a briefing on the programme the evaluators retired in the evening to their lodge.

11.04.05

The evaluators together with Rose, Mary and Davious joined a meeting in one of the settlements (Mgona) where they are interested in upgrading. The visitors explained to them how their process had achieved people managed upgrading programmes and the need to mobilise savings, enumerations and negotiations with Government bodies. The meeting went without hitch accompanied by a tour of the settlement.

In the afternoon the SDI members then joined the Mchenga meeting that was proceeding whilst I held a meeting with David and Gustavo at the CCODE offices. As there were still several issues to be discussed the meeting ended with a date for the following evening.

12.04.05

The evaluators, SDI and Malawi Federation members together with the Board Chair of CCODE went to a meeting with the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Surveys officials. We were all not prepared for the high-powered officials who were all waiting to hear from the SDI. We noted later that most officials had attended such international foras like the World Urban Forum where the SDI is always an important part hence the interest to find more about the Malawian context. The Permanent Secretary (Mr George Mkondiwa) and all the heads of departments: Commissioner for Planning, Director of Housing, Commissioner for Lands and the Director of Surveys all participated together with several other officials. The issues that were discussed were mainly to deal with slum upgrading, housing for the urban poor and enumerations that we all agreed to undertake together. At the end of this meeting the PS directed the Chief Housing Officer to work on a tripartite agreement (MLHS, SDI and CCODE) that will formalise a working relationship amongst the three parties.

In the afternoon the evaluators and SDI participated in a Federation meeting where the members were discussing their housing programme. Each group had brought a house model made of different materials but mainly straw, wood, and paper. This was a follow up to the cloth model that the Federation had undertaken. The houses they would want are 3 roomed core houses that would be extended with time. It was a beautiful afternoon with almost all the members donning their black and yellow Lilongwe wrappers. The visitors inputted on the housing loans and the responsibilities that the members would have to undertake during the housing process they were about to undertake.

In the evening my meeting with the David and Gustavo continued but unfortunately the activities had taken a toll on me so I just wanted to rest and we managed to cover most of the issues that they wanted to know from though.

13.04.05

The morning begun with Rose running late for her flight, and us off to a meeting with the City Assembly of Lilongwe where we met different councillors. Given the previous day’s meeting with the Ministry this was a failure in the eyes of the Federation. Gustavo had joined us whilst David had gone to CCODE offices to work with Liness (Administration) on the exchange visits the Federation holds as these are documented on the coordinators’ dispensing forms.

In the afternoon we left for Blantyre over 320km down south. By now the cheer leader’s team had surrendered except for the roadblocks where they would sing to ward off the police and it worked, as we were not stopped in 7 out of 8 of the roadblocks, which is a miracle in Malawi. We joined Joel (who had since arrived from South Africa), SDI enumeration team and the whole Federation team that was in Mbayani. The visitors were all introduced and we participated in a report back meeting by the enumeration members. David, Joel and Gustavo then went to their hotel for an evening rest.

14.04.05

David and Gustavo met with Federation representatives to find out the operations of the Malawian Federation a meeting that span from morning to lunch and I managed to have some mentoring from Joel who is never there when needed by the likes of us (too overstretched I guess but the few minutes you get are worth it none the less). In the afternoon Gustavo and David had a meeting with the Projects Coordinator for the Cities Without Slums from Blantyre City Assembly who gave them an insight on the operations of the City. Joel had some time for all the work that he was behind in. We all went for a meeting with the Blantyre Federation where the SDI members were able to discuss about their activities and the enumeration.

In the evening, the Malawi Federation, Zimbabwean, Kenyan, Zambian teams, Luke and Joel we all sat to discuss the enumeration and handover now that the SDI team would be going back before the enumeration ended. This went well with the negatives with Joel managing to steer the team into positives and Davious stressing on the importance of mobilisation that had to be undertaken together with the enumeration. The meeting with BCA was also planned for.

15.04.05

The SDI team was divided in half with the other doing the hand over to the Federation and the other attending a meeting with the BCA and the evaluators. This was to give a mid report on the enumeration and also to work out the implementation of the SDI-CCODE-BCA MOU (implementation had begun though with enumeration and involvement of Federation on implementation of the CWS). The meeting went well (with not adequate preparation on my part though with SDI around we didn’t sink). BCA would want to work with the Federation on a City wide upgrading programme that will involve both in-situ upgrading and relocation programmes and the modalities of this were discussed during this meeting, and issues of sanitation and water will also be included in this process. Mapping of the whole informal settlements in Blantyre will be carried out as part of this partnership and a need for financing was discussed. A technical meeting was then held that discussed in detail how this process would go. In the afternoon there were discussions to wind off the evaluation and exchange.

16.04.05

The whole team departed after 10 days, a huge success and learning experience on the part of both CCODE the Federation in Malawi.