How a Malawian village is holding back floods

Under the thick canopy of a man-made forest in Chikwawa, a district in southern Malawi, Luis Kudzala points towards the dry bed of the Mikalango River. During the rainy season, he says, that same river threatens to suddenly swell and flood nearby homes.

Kudzala lives in Nsomo, a village traversed by the Mikalango riverbank, and is no stranger to disasters. His district has repeatedly been hit by floods, while cyclones, including Idai, Ana and Freddy, have left a trail of destruction across southern Malawi. Kudzala recalls the events that followed Cyclone Freddy’s days of heavy rain in 2023: “Houses were destroyed, cattle and goats were washed away downstream, and household items ended in the Shire River.” The Shire River flows around three kilometres outside the village. Some families later used support from charities to buy iron sheets and rebuild their homes.

After a series of damaging floods, the community decided it could no longer idly wait for the next disasters, which are likely to hit even harder due to climate change. “We sat down to find the root cause of the damage and what could be done to minimise it,” Kudzala says. “We realised one of the reasons was the lack of trees.” So in 2013, villagers began planting trees close to the riverbanks. What started as a local effort has since grown into a forest of neem, Albizia lebbeck and other tree species.

A dyke against floodwater

But the trees were only part of the plan. Villagers also began strengthening the Mikalango riverbank with a dyke designed to stop floodwater from reaching their homes. “In 2015, a programme called Ubale started boosting our efforts by giving us maize, flour and cooking oil,” Kudzala says. “By then we had planted 12,000 trees.” Other organisations later joined in. The civil society organisations Eagles Malawi and Concern Worldwide supported the community’s disaster preparedness work, while the nonprofit organisation GiveDirectly, which makes unconditional cash transfers, assisted families who lost possessions during Cyclone Freddy.

Earlier this year, when heavy rains returned to the region, the outcome was different, according to Kudzala. The trees and the dyke stopped floodwater from reaching nearby households. “Without it, we would have been speaking about how many houses had been destroyed,” he says. “But because of the dyke, there is a bit of relief, considering we haven’t covered the whole riverbank yet.”

The approach has also spread beyond Nsomo. Kudzala says the village has shared seedlings with neighbouring areas, and surrounding communities have established similar forests.

Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs has also encouraged communities to take a greater role in disaster preparedness. Former spokesperson Chipiliro Khamula said community-built dykes complement government efforts to reduce disaster risks. “It is high time that communities, whether vulnerable or not, take an active role in all efforts aimed at building resilience to disasters,” he said.

Communities taking the lead

External organisations have joined the communities’ flood-protection efforts. Concern Worldwide, for instance, has provided support for disaster-preparedness work in the area, including community-led flood management and other nature-based solutions, says Ernest Kambiya, programme officer for monitoring and evaluation at the organisation. The idea, he explains, is to equip communities with the means to act proactively and autonomously. “In terms of preparedness, one area that we are focusing on is local financing, where we are trying to show that communities can take a lead on their own if they are given a platform.” 

Similar flood-protection projects include dykes along the Milore River in southern Malawi, as well as plans to build another dyke along the North Rukuru River in the city of Karonga. For Luis Kudzala in Nsomo village, the approach’s success is already visible right by the Mikalango river: a forest planted by the community itself and a dyke that, when the rains return, will help keep the water out.

Charles Pensulo is a freelance journalist based in Lilongwe.
charlespensulo@gmail.com