CAPACITY BUILDING FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT’S
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PLANNING- A CASE OF
ONE VILLAGE ONE PRODUCT IN MALAWI
Eiichi YOSHIDA
Area Studies Centre/African Studies,
Institute of Developing Economies, IDE-JETRO

Summary: Popular demand for economic development in the local scale has been growing
as decentralisation and multiparty system proliferate in Africa. In Malawian context,
decentralisation of local economic development (LED) programme and public service
delivery has been taking place at the same timing.
Although there are wide variety of LED programmes stipulated in each district
development plan, virtually all development projects budget still rely on a support offoreign aid agencies. This limits local district development office coordinate foreign aid
projects.
Despite this fact, the role of feign aid programmes are not well discussed in thelocal development office besides their office has a vague position in real coordination offoreign aid programme, so the programme like OVOP (One village one product) is
implemented sometimes direct from the central OVOP coordination office, sometimes
implemented with less coherence with the district development plan. This can cause serious
distortion in the local development process if decision making is done outside it or without
proper coherence with local development plan and policy process.
Therefore aid agencies which virtually govern local districts economic development
process should pay a careful attention on local development needs and demands when
implementing LED project. And at the same time, they need to support capacity building of
the district development office and LED planning of the local development office.
Decentralization of power in Malawi, as in most other sub-Saharan Africancountries, developed under the guidance of the World Bank UNDP and IMF. After 1994,
when the thirty years of single-party autocracy under the Banda regime ended, theargument evolved sharply; in 1996, the National Assembly passed the decentralization of
power, and in 1998, administrative decentralization of power enforced by regional
administrative law was put into practice.
In Malawi, where the decentralization of power and the propulsion of the multiparty system were advanced in one go, regional development schemes and the transfer of
those discretionary powers to the region are extremely large government problems, and, asa result, a state of affairs has arisen where schemes related to regional development areused politically. This is pointed out by, for example, the fact that participation by local
government in project application for the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF) meant toshare the burden of maintaining the community infrastructure with area residents is viewed
as a problem, and the fact that one objective of the introduction of “one village one
product” was seen as a resource for electoral district. (Yoshida [2006])

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Key words: Malawi, One village one product, decentralisation, LED, district development
plan,

1. Building Regional Development Administration
In Malawi, arguments over the decentralization of power advanced before and after
the 1994 regime change, and in 1998 the National Assembly approved a policy of national
decentralization of power based on regional administrative law. Under this policy, since1998, municipal governments have been established in 28 districts, 4 cities and seven towns
in Malawi. The goals of decentralization of power are explained in the following fashion by
the national decentralization of power policy.
The encouragement of a democratic environment directed towards the growth ofgovernance on a local level, of the establishment of institutions, and of grassroots
participation in decision-making.
*To aim for the dissolution of double government via district level regional
governments and central government branch offices, and for functional,
economically cost-effective public services.
*To urge good government and accountability on local levels to serve in the
reduction of poverty.
*To mobilize residents in the direction of social and economic developments on
local levels.
As examples of decentralized programme , the Ministry of Commerce and Industry
has given the granting office permits and approvals and of inspection. The Ministry ofAgricultural Irrigation has given administration on livestock diffusion, disease control,
small-scale dams, etc., and the Ministry of Youth, Gender and Community Service has
given women developments, community development, orphan, street children and youth
problems, cultural issues, district information services, and probation duties. There werealso districts that subsequently attempted district development planning but faced great
difficulties in 2001, through the support of UNDP, the regional municipal bureaus under
the Presidential office once again drew up a “Development Plan System Handbook forDistrict Assemblies.” (Republic of Malawi [2001])
This handbook guided that each district has first to gather data on the total social
economy in the district, then draw up a socioeconomic profile (SEP) for it. Based on the
SEP data, District Development Analysis (DDA) will then be performed. A participatory
development method (ZOPP) is built in to DDA. Based on this DDA, a District
Development Plan Framework (DDPF) is decided. The results are inspected by the District
Executive Committee, or DEC, which then puts a priority ranking on them. District
governors, district development planning office heads, assembly offices, local NGO
representatives and district office representatives from the central government participate in
the DEC. In this fashion, in every area of SEP drafting, the gathering and analysis of villagesocioeconomic data (DDA) make up the bare bones of a development plan.
In practice, however, before the writing of 2001’s “Development Plan Handbook”,
the number of districts that had drawn up SEPs was stopped at 6 out of 28. In other words,

175many district development plans were drawn up without either SEP or DDA. In addition,
the contents of the socioeconomic profiles drawn up by each district, the amount of data
they cover, and the methods of analysis differ by district. For example, the SEP for Nkhata
Bay, which attracts support in the northern region, has an thick amount of data, more than
142 pages’ worth. In contrast, the socioeconomic profile of the Dowa district, located quite
near the central capital Lilongwe, is 80 pages, and as the amount of data is very limited, thepages are filled with many photographs. The degree of each district’s efforts towards
decisions (such as what constitutes enough data) and the differences in drafting ability aremarked. (See Table 2)
Above, I have examined the decentralization of power and the process oftransferring development plans to the regions. Moving on, as an example of concretemeasures towards development plan decisions in each regional district, I will be looking at
the northern Nkhata Bay district. In addition, with regard to how development schemes can
respond to proposed diverse regional development needs, I will examine “one village one
product”.
2. Regional Development Administration and the “One Village One Product”
Movement
In Malawi’s current decentralization system, regionally available annual revenue
sources are very limited, and development budgets must depend on subsidies and support
from overseas donors; nevertheless, budget distribution is inclined towards public service
delivery. Depending on the region, there isn’t enough funding for municipal administration,
let alone for development funds. Under such circumstances, exactly how will the regions
propose and carry out development?
Malawi’s “one village one product” (OVOP) movement, which I focus on in thispaper, was introduced on a trial basis in 2003 by JICA, and in 2004 was officialised as a
Malawian government project as well. iii It may be a fresh approach to regional
development in response to the decentralization of power. OVOP produces employment
and income through improved value additions to regional resources with the aim ofregional poverty reduction, and the concept coincides perfectly with the LED approach I
mentioned earlier.
At the time of the November 2007, 37 OVOP activities had been implemented, andregions of activity were developing throughout the country. iv Currently, in order to be
adopted as an OVOP activity, each production activity group must apply of its own
initiative, go through five stages of reviews including one by village-level development
councils and another by the district development council, and must ultimately pass review
by the central government’s OVOP office. However, since political demand was strong at
the time of introduction and the planning of the measure formation was performed hastily, aformal review process was not fixed until some time after commencement. This actual stateof affairs can be seen in OVOP’s support of Malawian government-promoted schemes suchas the rice industry.
There are also activities begun by Malawian administrative officials who
participated in JICA training and, upon seeing sites of local community uplift in Japan,

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applied those ideas to their own villages where they provide support, and where the support
is maintained by backup from JICA. (Yoshida [2006])
Both OVOP activities of the two districts I focus on here have gone through theformal application process and are receiving support. As one example, I will focus on thebanana wine manufacturing group in the district of Nkhata Bay, which, while a distantregion, has strong ties with the regional development administration. I will also examine
the independently active cane and bamboo handicrafts group of Dowa district, which,although near the capital, has only tenuous ties to the regional development administration.
2.1. Nkhata Bay’s regional development plan
Nkhata Bay district is one of Malawi’s five northern districts, with a population of
167,000 (1998 census). It shares national borders with Tanzania and Mozambique. The
same district borders the shore of Lake Malawi, and it is 413 kilometers (about 5 hours)
along the paved lakeshore road to Lilongwe, and 48 kilometers to the central city of thenorthern districts, Mzuzu. The district capital holds Lake Malawi harbor, and is a major
port of call for cargo and passenger ships. Nkhata Bay’s lakeshore scenery is picturesque,and attracts many tourist from both Malawi and abroad. There are also several travel lodges
run by Europeans as well as locals.
The assembly which shoulders the core of the district government is made up oftwenty-two publicly elected members, ten traditional chiefs, two associate chiefs, six
national assembly members, five members of the local financial and religious group, a
representative for the disabled, and a representative of the NGO sectors. The district
government’s goal is touted as the realization of socioeconomic improvement for its
residents through education, water, health, communication facilities, administration and theadministration of justice. Nkhata Bay decided on the first District Development Plan (20022005) and the second District Development Plan (2006-ongoing) after the execution of thedecentralization process. (Nkhata-Bay District Assembly [2002, 2006])
According to the second three-year plan, the district gives insufficient income andemployment as the first problem point in development. The SEP from 2003 gives thecauses of low household income in Nkhata Bay as: 1.) insufficient opportunity for
employment (only five percent of the population is employed), 2.) the low productivity ofsmall farms, and 3.) the small amount of fish caught.
Accepting this, the district has named development goals it should aim for as theincrease of the current annual income of 230 kwacha to 7200 kwacha, a 5% reduction infish caught in the shallows by 2005, and the lowering of the hard-to-obtain layer ofagricultural investment funds from 95% to 85%. In addition, its short-term goals are to raise
the employment rate to 10%, increase access to agricultural investment funds, introduce
appropriate technologies, and increase the amount of fish caught from 867 tons to 1000
tons. As a strategy for achieving these goals, it has given: 1.) the promotion of income
creation activities, 2.) the introduction and diffusion of small-scale irrigation, 3.) crop
diversification, 4.) the promotion of the deep-level lake fishing industry, 4.) cultivation ofmarine products, 6.) community based fishing industry business management, 7.) the
promotion of diffusion of the dairy industry and 8.) the promotion of diffusion of thepoultry industry, as concrete proposals. vi

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As shown, the district has gone so far as to give concrete strategies, but in practice,when it comes to execution plans for individual projects, the problem of budget stands inthe way. Proposed alongside countermeasures for low household income such as income
improvement and creating employment, as are shown in Diagram 1, are improvements
meant for the promotion of the agricultural and fishing industries. Even among these, as
concrete measures meant for poverty relief and employment creation, through businessfinancing research and the diffusion of SME’s appropriate technology, the clichéd
explanations of promotion of men, women, school dropouts, and marginalized small-scalebusinesses are given. The fact that the agricultural and fishing industries, which are aiming
for coexistence between environmental preservation and promotion, are firmly undertaking
concrete proposals before tailoring them to fit regional conditions seems to show that there
is no viewpoint of regional promotion and use of regional resources with regard to income
creation projects, which in turn points to a state of affairs where concrete measures tailored
to regional conditions are lacking. In actuality, they are doing nothing more than adapting
the introduction of appropriate technology for existent trifling occupation support,
corporate financing and small-scale production (Nkhata-Bay District Assembly [2002]).
Under such circumstances, what sort of role does OVOP play?
According to Nkhata Bay’s SEP, OVOP is one of several social services provisionprojects. There are three items on women development and community development issues
in social services provisions — 1.) diffuser activity, 2.) community (social) development,
3.) women and development) — and of those three items, OVOP is included in the
structure which supports the economic empowerment of women and development. As ascheme to realize the economic empowerment of women, OVOP is placed side by side with
the HIPC loan project, COMSIP (the financing department of Malawi’s social action fund),other micro-finances, and socioeconomic empowerment programs for poverty reduction.
An explanation of OVOP is run as an appendix in SEP, and in it, the introduction oftechniques for value added improvement and of plans for the use of regional resources isrecorded as an objective. In this way, OVOP is one method of support for aid organizations
active in the regional district, and in Nkhata Bay district it is ranked as a tool for the
economic empowerment of women. (Nkhata-Bay District Assembly [2006])
Insert Diagram 1
2.2. Nkhata Bay’s Mkondezi Banana Wine Manufacturing GroupThe “one village one product” movement was not, by nature, defined as a genderrelated project, even at the time of its introduction to Malawi. Its central concept was
simply to plan for income improvement and the relief of local poverty through value
addition to regional resources and using them in production activities. However, the Nkhata
Bay District Assembly, which I introduced in the previous section, has given greatemphasis to the viewpoint of the empowerment of women where OVOP is concerned.
That being the case, how are the regional production groups themselves interpretingand practicing OVOP? I will examine this using the Nkhata Bay’s Mkondezi banana wine
manufacturing group (MBWG), which receives support through OVOP, as an example.

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This group produces banana alcohol by fermenting locally grown bananas. The ideaof turning the production of banana alcohol into a business was actually given to them fromoutside. It began when an official from the Development of Malawian Enterprises Trust(DEMAT), which handles the diffusion of appropriate technology, visited the district andperformed a basic investigation into the possibilities for industrialization of regional special
products in 2001. The large quantities of bananas which had been wasted until that point
were designated as a regional resource that should put to use, and the possibility ofindustrializing that use was looked into. Later, a District Development Officer who wascooperating with DEMAT decided to recommend banana wine as a production activity, andthe regional group that approved of the decision took over the production. vii
The regional leader who became the center of the group’s new organization had had
the idea of industrializing the production of tea wine, so he put his hand to the task ofbanana winemaking as well, and gathered volunteers, concentrating on women. The
volunteers who participated were farmers from every area who participated in the regional
irrigation scheme. In 2002, after the organization was formed, the group received training
and guidance in banana winemaking from DEMAT. They planned to sell this banana winein the surrounding areas, in Nkhata Bay’s beach hotel district, and in Mzuzu, the central
city of the five northern districts, and are even now working at running their business inthese places.
However, the sales routes for banana wine have been reluctant to open. Then, in
2007, District Development Officer introduced OVOP. At that point, MBWG made thedecision to change their wine labels and cap covers completely, and received technicalguidance from OVOP headquarters. The OVOP office supported the design for the winelabels and cap covers and the procurement of their components. The designs were plannedby a member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers who had been dispatched by
JICA to the OVOP office, and who also assisted with component procurement.
MBWG’s activity focused in on what had been a wasted natural resource, exercises
appropriate technology, and is currently raising the value added. The District Development
Office regards MBWG as the activity of a women’s group, but in actuality its implications
as a product development business are also large. For that purpose, choosing theappropriate market for the product, then achieving the technical level and production
volume necessary for access to that market is the key to success in business, and in fact,
inside MBWG itself, the consciousness of being a women’s group is weak. However,underlying this is the fact that the District Development Office’s decision to rank it as a
women’s support project concerned with gender makes promotion inside of the district easy.
2.3. Dowa’s Katengeza Cane Furniture GroupAs a contrasting example to the wine-making group, Dowa’s Katengeza Cane
Furniture Group is of great interest. Dowa has a population of 410,000 and adjoins thecapital, Lilongwe, on the northeast.
The Katengeza region lies along the well-trafficked national highway that connects
the capital city of Lilongwe with Lake Malawi’s Salima harbor. In Salima District, on Lake
Malawi’s shore, resort lands, fishing villages, and irrigated regions for rice cultivation arebeing developed. In addition, bamboo groves dot Salima and the bordering Dowa district,179

and arts and crafts utilizing those bamboo groves have been practiced for decades.
Traditionally, they have produced mainly tools for daily use, primarily basket-typecontainers, and in recent years they have begun to produce large-scale furniture such assofa sets and utensil cupboards, woven from a mix of wisteria and bamboo. The Katengeza
area is located eight kilometers from Salima Town and 70 kilometers from the capital city
Lilongwe but, by administrative zoning, it is affiliated with Dowa district, which runs like a
strip between Salima district and Lilongwe district. Workshops located in the area along thenational highway for approximately 2 kilometers; among these, there are two clusters of a
few adjoining workshops, and it is in one of these two clusters that this group work from.
Up until now, three different support schemes have been put into this bambooproducing region. One is support for the bamboo-work crafts made by a women’s group in
Chipara region from the Ministry of Community and Gender’s Appropriate Technology
Training for Income Generating Activities Center (ATTIGA). In a different collection
ground along the national highway, support from the working ability development andincome creation project (SDIG), which is itself supported by the African Development
Bank and African Development Fund, is in operation for a bamboo-work group. In contrast
to the gender support and appropriate technology approach taken up in the former, in thelatter the concept of working ability development is used. It is in circumstances such asthese that the “one village one product” movement was established. viii
The Katengeza cane and bamboo handicrafts group participated in OVOP in 2006,
but the group has a history, having produced bamboo-based handicrafts and distributed
them in the Dowa-Salima area since around 1980. In recent years, they have mixed in canefrom the Salima district, producing furniture handicrafts made from both wisteria andbamboo. The group heard OVOP’s information broadcast on the radio, took an interest in it,
and attended a sensitization seminer organized by JICA and OVOP central office in
Lilongwe without support of district development office. The group concluded that, withouta market reputation of high quality, they could not possibly win against imported products
or products from rival domestic companies in urban markets and more distant markets, andso they are passionate about improving their technology. This is the flip-side of the strong
feelings of expectation that, if the technology is improved, deals with retail shops in urban
areas may become possible, and it was from those expectations that they attended OVOP.
Through support from OVOP, in addition to several varieties of tools, they gained a simple
kuji boiling treatment device in order to perform treatments for killing kuji insects. From
here on, through additional support, they are planning the construction of a lockable
workshop which will double as a warehouse, to take the place of the simple workshop
space they are currently using.
Katengeza region’s cane-bamboo handicrafts are seen within Dowa district as arelatively important local industry. However, the District Development Office has noconcrete support measures for regional industries. Similar to that of Nkhata Bay, which I
spoke of previously, in the district SEP the name of the central government enforcing
engine which supervises the existent women’s support industry, appropriate technology
training and financing business and that enforcing engine enroll the regions chosen by theirvarious policies. This indicates that the enforcing engine of the capital city of Lilongwe has
seized the initiative, and that the scope which the District Development Office is able todecide is extremely narrow. (Republic of Malawi [2003])

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In this region of bamboo-work and cane handicraft production, including Katengeza,a traditional industry that has historically put regional resources to use has spread its roots
widely. Since existent concepts such as women’s support and working ability development
are already spreading at the source, it will take time for the LED specific to OVOP to makeitself known to regional women’s groups. If the three viewpoints share their respective
areas, and opportunities for cooperative learning are established, there is a possibility thatthey will combine their strong points. On the other hand, for example, if some groupsomewhere delays their financing repayment, there is the possibility that another group will,in a chain-link reaction, default on their debt; there is also the possibility that, if only the
viewpoint of support for industrialization is emphasized, the standpoint of practical use ofregional resources will be disregarded. This sort of element of instability should be
included in the carpooling of support schemes.
In the paragraphs above, while my scope was limited, I examined examples of
OVOP in operation in Malawi. What became clear from that examination was that the levelat which each district’s regional development office is able to participate is not constant. In
the case of the banana wine group, the district is taking the initiative in OVOP diffusion. In
the case of the Katengeza group, the production group leader passed over the district office
and approached OVOP, before the District Development Office diffused the OVOP concept.
The fact that there are cases of the regional development administration taking the lead ineach region when producers first begin OVOP is exceedingly natural, since OVOP is a wayof thinking which was born overseas. Even in the event that the district takes the lead, or
where the group itself takes the lead, OVOP has always been a project which treats eachcountry as one unit, so there is an insufficient degree of freedom on the district level, andultimately it is DEMAT or OVOP headquarters, in the center, who decide whether or not tosupport activities. Under the circumstances, it is necessary for OVOP headquarters to grasp
the state of each district’s development plan and SEP, the gap between each region’s SEP
and the region’s actual circumstances, and their ability to adjust it.
In Nkhata Bay district, urging the entry of small-scale producers in the regional
fishing industry and agricultural industry is agreed to be a priority issue; however, inpractice, the systems and policies brought in by DEMAT and other support engines werepreexisting, and women’s support and appropriate technology training, business which give
an improvement in added value for agricultural products as their objective, or businesses
which fall within the scope where any of the previous are applicable, are given priority. In
the Dowa District Development Office as well, before the introduction of OVOP, existent
women’s group support and working ability support schemes were the only method of
promoting development projects. Even in the case of groups which, like the cane andbamboo handicrafts group, are the greatest local industry in their district and have potential
for growth as a regional industry cluster, the needs that occur in a bigger market are
difficult to grasp. The actual circumstances are such that, rather than carrying out projects
within the scope of usable schemes that are close at hand, other methods come first.
In the midst of the global trend towards decentralization of power, Malawi has
preceded its surrounding countries and is beginning to advance the decentralisation ofdevelopment administration. However, for regional development administrations withinsufficient development funds, in the end, there are few choices for conducting industry
promotion which surpass existent women’s support groups and appropriate technology

181support schemes. By nature, both finances and flexible regional development schemes
pulled together from the region’s inclinations are held to be necessary for regional
development administrations, and demand at the district level is increasingly gaining
strength, but one cannot say that the environment which will realize this is ready andwaiting.
3. The Regionalization of Economic Development Policies Corresponding to theDecentralization of PowerAt present, a Pro-Poor LED approach is dominant in Malawian regional
development. Of course, product and business development LED approaches driven bymarket principles coexist inside it, and examples of development carried out according totheories difficult for the villagers who perform the production activities to understand still
remain. The activities supported by Malawi’s “one village one product” movement fit thatexample perfectly. In addition, although I omitted its introduction due to space concerns, a
local project-type LED approach, in which a region as a whole is comprehensively
supported by a specific regional space, is being attempted in Mitundu, near the capital city.
These circumstances of mingled regional development concepts signify the insufficiency of
OVOP’s concept organization with regard to new development models, and the resulting
lack of understanding of OVOP, which will hereafter become issues concerned with
OVOP’s gaining global estimation.
Upon having tidied up these mingled regional development concepts, what can the“one village one product” movement propose as a concept for regional generaldevelopment? I believe that may be market-led regional promotion. Under current
circumstances, products produced by women’s group support or the appropriate technology
approach are put on the market, but marketing consciousness for products produced bythese approaches is much too low. The consumer hardly ever thinks about whether awoman made the product or not, or whether or not appropriate technology was used tomake it. No matter what sort of product or service is taken as object, the possibilities formarketing differ between the areas around large urban districts and far-flung districts, andthe potential among producers for the use of technological information is also different.
OVOP views information that can be gained in markets such as these as important, andattempts the development and production of products that respond to these markets.
Even if support engines for villages near urban areas bring in technologies they
believe to be appropriate, producers who already know the demands of the urban markets
may not decide that the technology is appropriate for their own group. Take, for example, aproduct such as essential oils whose goal is an export market: since it is a high-value added
product, even low-volume production in a distant farm village may be economicallypractical. In order to make a success of that project, then, more modern technologies andmarketing approaches are needed. One of the essences of the “one village one product”
movement is the development of products in response to markets; calculating from thatreality, it is necessary to have support for the formation of production organizations suited
to the targeted markets, and for the development and regional application of technology
appropriate to that end, not just appropriate technologies and gender consideration whichtake into account only resources which it is possible to use in the field.

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In Malawi regional development has arrived at the stage where it is being put into
practice from a local viewpoint, and not necesarily planned from the central office of urban
elite and development autocrats. It is probable that Malawi is one of the countries in which
this transition is advancing in a short period of time. In this situation, if assistance engine
support schemes are unable to understand the point of view that supports this localisation,
there is the possibility that they will end by hindering the realization of regionalization ofdevelopment. In accordance with the growing trend towards regions taking the lead inregional development, the assistance engines, which must continue to carry the better partof African regional development, must be able to transform themselves so that they canprovide flexible support for regional circumstances.

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