Flood water had destroyed all her corn crops, an essential lifeline to feed her family and earn a modest income. The spiralling costs of seeds and fertilisers put replanting beyond her reach.

“The cyclone left me completely with nothing”, she told Climate Home News.

As Sandram searched for help, she said no relief was available aside from the limited support she could obtain from family members.

Elube Sandram was among the beneficiaries of the UK-funded programme in Malawi’s Chikwawa district. Photo: Raphael Mweninguwe

Her problems could have been prevented. In 2018, she registered for a £52 million ($63m) UK aid programme which helped vulnerable Malawians better cope with climate-driven floods and droughts.

But during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the UK government cut back its aid spending, ending support for Sandram and many others in Malawi and around the world.

Let down

The programme that Sandram was involved with was run by UN agencies and NGOs and helped farmers by providing them with tools, training on things like pig farming and financial assistance like weather-related insurance or cash transfers.

The idea was that it’s not quite so disastrous if a flood or a drought destroys a farmers’ crops if they have livestock or an insurance payout to keep putting food on the table.

But following the UK’s cutbacks, several parts of the scheme have been reduced or axed altogether.

The activities run by a group of NGOs were wound down in 2021, two and a half years before their scheduled end. Concern Worldwide and Goal Malawi, the main implementing partners, closed their local offices. Only a series of projects with a more limited scope operated by UN agencies are still running.

Aubrey Kabudula, a farmer from Kwataine Village in Chikwawa, told Climate Home: “We were told that one of the objectives is to help people to be climate-resilient.”

“With its abrupt closure we do not think that has been achieved,” he said.

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It is an assessment shared by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), the UK body tasked with scrutinising how foreign aid is spent.

In June, they said that the project had been “highly effective and coherent” but had been “undermined” by cutbacks to aid and the downsizing or removal of components.

A rice field in Malawi’s Karonga region affected by drought in early 2023. Credit: Eldson Chagara

Issues are only likely to get worse. Malawi is increasingly struggling with more frequent and intense cycles of flooding and droughts. The passage of Cyclone Freddy in March killed more than 600 people and displaced at least 650,000 more, while also dismantling infrastructures and livelihoods.

Climate shocks have exacerbated poverty levels, especially for rural farmers. The World Bank estimates that over half of the country’s 19.1 million people live in poverty with women being the most affected. Low agriculture production because of droughts and floods is cited as one of the main causes.

Rishi Sunak’s rollbacks

Countries like Malawi cannot afford to address these problems alone.

Unsustainable levels of existing public debt rule out borrowing at expensive rates as an option. Most of Malawi’s climate plans are funded through grant-based international public finance provided by rich countries like the United Kingdom.

At the United National General Assembly in 2019 the then-prime minister Boris Johnson made a big, and unexpected, announcement.

He promised the UK would double its international climate finance to reach a target of £11.6 billion ($14.2bn) in 2026.

Only a few months later the global Covid-19 pandemic upended daily lives and economic orders, prompting an abrupt rethink of spending priorities.

International aid was one of the casualties. Then finance minister Rishi Sunak cut its foreign aid target from 0.7% of gross national income to 0.5%.

With Sunak now prime minister, this “temporary measure” has yet to be reversed.

Since then, the competition for a shrinking pool of money has intensified as aid funding has been diverted to support Afghan and Ukrainian refugees hosted in the UK.

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An internal government document reported on by the Guardian suggested the £11.6bn goal could be dropped as general aid cut-backs make it a “huge challenge”.

Not just Malawi

The cuts have hit climate projects around the world. UK-funded climate resilience projects have been cut or delayed in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Kenya and small-island states.

Government figures show that the number of people whose climate resilience was improved by UK aid flatlined for the first time since records began in the last financial year.

In India, a foreign office report found that budget cuts meant that activities to help rural communities cope with climate impacts had been “reduced, slowed down and stopped in some instances”.

In Pakistan, a foreign office report found that a £38 million ($46m) climate resilience plan had been paused for 18 months because of “uncertainty… following significant and unanticipated costs incurred to support the people of Ukraine and Afghanistan in finding refuge in the UK.

A large-scale project aiming to help a series of African countries build resilience to climate change suffered a significant “scale back from its original ambition”, as its annual summary said.

The programme envisaged a £250 million ($306m) budget in its business case, but this has now been reduced to “up to £100 million” ($122m).

Targets have been scaled back too. One original target was to improve the resilience of four million people through an early-warning system. That’s been reduced to three million.

In Chikwawa the climate project has still left a mark in the minds of many people despite the cutbacks.

The beneficiaries now hope that the country, a former British colony, will not be entirely forgotten.

“I am still optimistic that the assistance that we were receiving from the donor [UK government], will not be gone forever,” said Sandram. “And if I were to be asked whether that funding should resume or not, I will say it should resume because climate change is here to stay.”

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This is true for southeastern Africa where the devastating passage of Cyclone Freddy laid bare low-income countries’ high vulnerability to extreme climate events.

In the worst-hit Malawi, the storm killed more than 600 people and displaced at least 650,000 more, while also dismantling infrastructures and livelihoods.

A patchwork of disparate tools under the loose umbrella of ‘loss and damage finance’ is now being fast-tracked to help countries like Malawi recover from Cyclone Freddy and prepare for future hazards.

But the nation’s leaders and international campaigners are urging rich nations to quickly deploy more substantial, structural and unconditional funds. If it takes too long for loss and damage money to be available – they warn – communities could be trapped in a state of perpetual vulnerability.

Devastating impact on Malawi

In Malawi extreme weather events, like floods and seasonal droughts, are becoming more frequent and more intense due to climate change.

Government estimates suggest the country loses an average of 1.7% of its GDP every year as a result of climate change-related disasters. It is already one of the poorest countries in the world.

A group of Malawians rushes towards a rescue boat after an extreme climate event. Photo: UNDP/Flickr

Cyclone Freddy was the longest-lasting and most travelled tropical cyclone ever recorded, according to meteorologists. The floods caused by the storm affected half of the country. Dozens of major roads and bridges have been swept away, making vast swathes of the country inaccessible by road.

It was the third extreme weather event to strike Malawi in a 13 months period.

Zoha Shawoo, a researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, says if communities cannot recover from the loss and damage caused by one event they will be more and more vulnerable to future ones.

“There is a need for urgency in delivering funds, but also for dedicated, long-term support for recovery and rehabilitation,” Shawoo told Climate Home News.

‘Funds are needed right now’

At Cop27 governments agreed to set up a fund for vulnerable communities hit by climate disasters. Now a UN Transitional Committee is tasked with setting the details of how that will work: who pays in, who benefits and how the money is handed out.

The group is made up of 24 government representatives (most of whom are from the developing world) and met for the first time in Egypt this week.

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A few days before the meeting kicked off, Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera said loss and damage payments are needed “right now”.

“Those nations that have made pledges in the past need to put their money where their climate change mouths are,” Chakwera told CNN in an interview.

Long road ahead

Concrete help is not expected to arrive from the UN loss and damage fund anytime soon though. While the inaugural meeting has been described as successful in laying the groundwork, some observers have expressed concern over the pace of the action.

The Transitional Committee has scheduled three more meetings this year before making its initial recommendations ahead of Cop28 in November. Then the fund will need to be filled and made operational.

The SEI’s Shawoo doesn’t expect to see money flowing from the fund for at least the next two years. In the meantime, she says developed countries should do everything they can to fill this gap with other forms of financing.

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Ideally, she says, this should take the form of unconditional, grant-based finance that goes directly to the local level.

Scotland became one of the first nations to stump up cash for loss and damage by giving a small grant to Malawi.

Speeding up support

In the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy, other measures to avert, minimise and address loss and damage are being fast-tracked.

A spokesperson for the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) told Climate Home the tragedy had “added impetus” to the United Nations-backed initiative to get everyone in the world protected by early warning systems by 2027.

The head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, has now convened an advisory panel on the initiative made up of leaders of UN agencies, multilateral development banks, humanitarian organisations, civil society, insurance and IT companies.

They’ve chosen 30 vulnerable countries to focus their initial efforts on. These include Mozambique and Madagascar, which were hit by Cyclone Freddy along with Malawi.

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Another initiative is known as the Global Shield, a G7 scheme for pre-arranged financial support to be quickly deployed in times of climate disasters.

The Global Shield has initial funding of $210m available, with Germany by far its biggest backer, and works with a group of countries that are highly vulnerable to climate change called the V20.

Its initial focus has been mostly directed at insurance-based measures like social protection systems, risk-sharing networks, and credit guarantees. Its promoters say this increases the leverage potential of the limited funding available.

But critics have pointed the finger at various pitfalls with insurance products including limited coverage for certain events, unpredictable payouts and obstacles to access to certain sections of the population.

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Germany and V20 told Climate Home News negotiations are driven by the recipient countries so the packages will include the most suitable tools for them.

Hopes for rapid Global Shield package

While there is no specific timeline, the expectation is the first batch of funding could be delivered by the end of 2023. The V20 Finance Advisor Sara Jane Ahmed says all parties need to “work round the clock” to get a deal with Malawi over the finish line.

“Extreme weather events are not new in Malawi. They should have resources available ahead of time so they could reduce the damage of the impact. That’s why we are accelerating things as fast as possible”, she said.

Alongside insurance products, Ahmed says the V20 is working on giving Malawi small grants so that impacted communities can replace infrastructure and livelihoods quickly.

A spokesperson for the German Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development told Climate Home News the Malawian government is leading the in-country dialogue and determining its speed. “The Global Shield stands ready to start the work with Malawi and to in the process potentially fast track the development of solutions to prepare for the next climate disaster,” it added.

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The subsistence farmers and their families collect the urine they pass – most even keep a plastic vessel in their bedroom for use at night – and store it in containers where it matures and turns into a fertiliser worth about $0.47 a litre, cheaper than chemical rivals.

The system is a shift from the use of pit latrines where the urine seeps away into the ground.

“This fertiliser is very effective on crops, it works just like most of the chemical fertilisers and it quickly reacts on the crops as opposed to the chemical fertilisers,” said Mark Folopenzi, a 45-year old farmer at Neno who lives with his wife and three children.

Malawi has a largely agricultural economy, with more than 80% of its population in rural areas and earning a living through subsistence, rain-fed crops including maize, sorghum, pulses and millet. The country is the sixth poorest in the world.

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In a bid to improve agricultural productivity among subsistence farmers, the government of Malawi has since 2005 been implementing the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP), which has been lauded for increasing maize yields and rural incomes.

The programme, which targets around one million of the country’s 11 million smallholder farmers, has cost 288.9 billion kwacha ($393.6 million). However, despite this expenditure, the programme has not necessarily empowered subsistence farmers, as year in and year out they seek relief from government due to hunger as a result of unpredictable weather patterns.

High population growth, deforestation and erosion make the economy especially vulnerable to worsening climate change. The impact of erratic rains, prolonged dry spells and severe floods has been aggravated by a lack of agricultural resources, including fertilisers.

While farmers face many challenges, the biggest cause of crop failure is low rainfall and low nutrients in the soil. Maize, the country’s staple crop, demands lots of nutrients, and growing the plant without fertilisers is difficult.

A study by the International Food Policy Research Institute found that while subsidising fertiliser prices increases use, yields, and household income, it discourages use of organic-based materials and methods to maintain soil fertility.

With the ever-rising cost of chemical fertilisers, subsistence farmers in Malawi have been finding it hard to afford chemical fertilisers, and they have been trying to find affordable and sustainable alternatives – such as urine.

(Photo: Madalitso Kateta)

Folopenzi said the introduction of Bionitrate fertiliser, which is made by maturing human urine in plastic containers, has helped farmers amid the ever-rising costs.

“We can’t grow crops without applying fertilisers as we used to some fifteen years ago. The soil has over the years lost its fertility and growing crops without fertiliser results in bad harvest and hunger,” said Folopenzi.

“This [Bionitrate] fertiliser is very good and we are excited that we can also save a lot of money if we can produce our own fertiliser from the urine we can collect at home,” he said.

Sabawo Chikuni, another farmer from Neno, was previously worried the Bionitrate fertiliser was unhygienic and could be infected with parasites. But having seen its effects, he now plans to use the fertiliser in the winter cropping season.

“I previously had negative feelings on the use of human urine on crops. I felt like this could not be a better alternative to chemical fertilisers. But looking at how the maize in the gardens of farmers that are using this fertiliser has grown, I believe government could be doing us justice if it promoted this fertiliser,” he said.

Bionitrate fertiliser is being championed by Environmental Industries, a private non-profit company that has been working with different local and international organisations in Malawi to promote the use of biotechnology and produce fertilisers which are economically sustainable, environmentally friendly, and safe to use.

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Goodfellow Phiri, director at Environmental Industries, said Bionitrate fertilisers are safe to use and do not pose any health hazards, despite health and ethical questions raised by some farmers.

He told Climate Home News that before the urine is turned into fertiliser, it ages and the chemical processes in the urine turn it from an acid to an alkaline, making the product very salty and not habitable for germs.

“In the alkaline state, the PH is beyond seven and the product is salty. In this salty state, all the germs are dead and the fertiliser is odorless and free from germs. However, if mishandled during use, it can be contaminated,” said Phiri.

The fertiliser also helps conserve the soil by raising its PH through its chemical composition, giving it the same effect as agricultural lime on acidic soils.

Phiri’s company collects 40 litres of urine a day and matures 14,600 litres of Bionitrate urine per year. The Bionitrate urine is sold at K350.00 ($0.47) per litre as opposed to the K470.00 ($0.64) per kilo for chemical fertiliser. For an acre of maize, a farmer needs 50 litres of Bionitrate urine.

Urinals at “urine harvesters” are equipped with a urine trap which collects the urine into a 20-litre container, and the urine is later transferred into a 200-litre maturing tank before being packaged into 20-litre and five-litre containers.

(Photo: Madalitso Kateta)

Phiri said the company was currently training farmers on how to process their own urine rather than buy the liquid.

“Our goal is to train farmers on how to construct urine harvesters which can enable them to collect enough urine which they can turn into Bionitrate fertiliser. This is the only way we can make the farmers self-reliant as the cost of fertiliser keeps rising,” he said.

Apart from harvesting urine for fertiliser production, the farmers can create business opportunities by constructing public urine harvesting toilets, which they could charge to use, he said.

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“We are training farmers on how they can get maximum results from this natural fertiliser. However, the challenge that we are currently facing is low adoption because of mindset change towards fertilisers made from human waste,” he said, before adding that demand for Bionitrate fertiliser was steadily rising among subsistence farmers.

Environmental Industries has been working with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and several non-governmental organisations. It is currently cooperating with the government of Malawi and seed companies to popularise Bionitrate fertiliser across the country.

“This is the right path for Malawi to follow, as the 42 billion Kwacha we spend annually on the Farm Input Subsidy Programme is too much considering that it only benefits one million farmers out of the 11 million active farmers,” said Phiri.

Masauko Dzumani, the Agricultural Extension Development Officer (AEDO) for Neno Extension Planning Area (EPA), said Bionitrate fertilisers were working on crops just as well as chemical fertilisers, and his office has been recommending farmers start using this natural fertiliser.

“We have been doing a trial of the effectiveness of the Bionitrate fertiliser and we have observed that the farmers that have been using it are having the same crops as those that have applied chemical fertilisers like calcium ammonium nitrate and nitrogen phosphorus and potassium,” said Dzumani.

For the farmers using Bionitrate, they have found an effective, cheap, way to sustain their crops.

And it all starts with a plastic pot by the bed.

This article was produced as part of an African reporting programme supported by Future Climate for Africa.

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The African Risk Capacity (ARC) paid out “too little, too late” to help communities hit by poor rains and crop failure, said the development charity.

G7 countries have promised to extend insurance cover to 400 million people in developing countries at risk from climate change impacts by 2020. But they must avoid replicating a model with “major defects”, the report argued.

The Malawian government paid ARC a premium of $4.7m in 2015 for the 2015/16 agricultural season. Soon afterwards, the El Niño weather system triggered drought across many parts of Africa, including Malawi.

In April 2016, the government declared a national emergency and a month later, the World Food Programme estimated 6.5 million Malawians were going hungry. The authorities estimated the total cost of responding to the crisis at $395m.

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Meanwhile, the ARC initially calculated that just 20,594 people were affected by the drought – not enough to trigger a payout. After reviewing its assumptions, the initiative revised that to 2m. It agreed a payout of $8.1m in November 2016 that was released in January 2017 – nine months after emergency was declared.

The insurance was never expected to cover the full cost of such an event: payouts were capped at $30m. But a key selling point was that insurance could get money moving in an emergency faster than humanitarian appeals.

“Speedy access to an insurance pay-out and international supplies of maize could have indeed helped avert a disaster,” said the report.

The discrepancy was due to a faulty assumption about the type of crop farmers were growing, a spokesperson for the ARC explained. They based their calculations on long-cycle maize crops, which survived the drought, rather than the more widely planted short-cycle maize that failed.

Once this issue was resolved, the spokesperson said by email: “These funds went a significant way to plugging a gap in the response activities that the government of Malawi was already implementing. This included cash transfer to affected households and the replenishment of the country’s strategic grain reserves.”

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The Action Aid report said the problems with the scheme went further than an accounting error. The model that the ARC used to assess claims was “complex and opaque”, it said, not allowing for a transparent process. Nor was the model nuanced enough to take into account the complex factors that create a drought crisis. Action Aid also argued that Malawi’s eventual payout of $8.1m did not justify a premium of $4.7m, especially when its disbursement was uncertain and potentially tardy.

Malawian government officials told Action Aid they would not be renewing the policy, the charity said. In a detailed commentary on the analysis seen by Climate Home, the ARC questioned the charity’s sources for that claim, but provided no evidence to the contrary. Asked directly about renewal, the ARC spokesperson said “discussions are still ongoing” with the government of Malawi.

The UK and Germany are financing the ARC with 20-year interest-free loans, which allow African governments to access insurance at a discount.

It forms part of the G7 InsuResilience initiative, which pools the risks faced by vulnerable countries from the impacts of global warming.

That initiative “is reinforcing an ill-informed rush to roll out insurance, overlooking better alternatives and causes of structural vulnerability,” wrote Jonathan Reeves, author of the Action Aid report. Cash would be better spent on early warning systems, community microfinance and resilient agriculture projects, he argued.

The ARC responded that insurance was never meant to be a “panacea” or alternative to humanitarian aid, but played an “important” role in disaster response.

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