Peter Mvula

University of Malawi | UNIMA · Centre for Social Research

We explore the impacts of Malawi's national unconditional cash transfer program targeting ultra-poor households on youth mental health. Experimental findings show that the program significantly improved mental health outcomes. Among girls in particular, the program reduces indications of depression by about 15 percentage points. We investigate the...

Background: Equitable access to health services is a key ingredient in reaching health for persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. So far, research on access to health services in low- and middle-income countries has largely relied on self-reported survey data. Realizing that there may be substantial discrepancies between perceived a...

Who does what and when during an impact evaluation has an important influence on the credibility and usefulness of the evidence generated. We explore such choreography from technical, political and ethical perspectives by reflecting on a case study that entailed collaborative design of a qualitative impact evaluation protocol (‘the QuIP’) and its p...

This study analyzes the short-term impact of an exogenous, positive income shock on caregivers’ subjective well-being (SWB) in Malawi using panel data from 3,365 households targeted to receive Malawi's Social Cash Transfer Program that provides unconditional cash to ultra-poor, labor-constrained households. The study consists of a cluster-randomize...

This book contributes to the understanding of smallholder agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa through addressing the dynamics of intensification and diversification within and outside agriculture, in contexts where women have much poorer access to agrarian resources than men. It uses a longitudinal cross-country comparative approach, relying on the A...

Improved female control over land is often put forth as a means of raising the productivity of smallholder agriculture, enhancing female bargaining power and raising women's incomes. The article uses some quantitative but primarily qualitative data on access to income and decision making, to analyse gender patterns related to welfare, incomes and c...

This study uses panel data for 3290 households to analyze the effect of an unconditional cash transfer on food and nutrition security among ultra-poor and vulnerable households. Study data are from an impact evaluation of the Government of Malawi's Social Cash Transfer Program, a cluster-randomized control trial that employs both random selection a...

Unconditional cash transfer programs are a form of structural intervention to address poverty, a “fundamental cause” of disease. Such programs increasingly aim to build resilience to sustain improved outcomes and provide a solid foundation for longer term transformations. As such, there is a need to understand what resilience means in specific cont...

Government agricultural policies which favour large-scale agriculture and rapid population growth on a limited land area have combined to create a situation of land poverty in many parts of Malawi, especially in the southern region of the country. The government’s response to land poverty has so far been focused on the creation of resettlement sche...

This study analyzes the impact of a positive income shock on child schooling outcomes using experimental data from an unconditional cash transfer program in Malawi. Since households receive the cash and parents are responsible for making spending decisions, we also examine the intervening pathways between cash transfers and child schooling. Data co...

In the 2015/16 agricultural season, the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) was in its 11th year of implementation providing subsidised fertilisers and seeds to smallholder farmers in Malawi. The 2015/16 subsidy programme included 150,000 MT of fertilisers (NPK and urea), 7,135 MT of maize seeds (of which 87% were hybrid maize seeds), 0.16 MT of pi...

Access to water in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) continues to be a challenge to the extent that there are more people without access to water in 2015 than in 1990. This inidcates that current approaches to water provision has been ineffective. Governments have failed to provide a structure, mechanisms or aproaches that guarantees water for ALL. Resultin...

This report presents the main findings of an evaluation of the 2014/15 Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP). The main objective of the evaluation is to assess the impact and implementation of the FISP in order to provide information regarding: (1) the overall value for money of investments in the FISP as regards its contributions to agricultural pro...

Background Somatic changes including growth and development of the brain of a human being occur very early in life. Programmes that enhance early childhood development (ECD) therefore should be part of the national agenda. Cognizant of this fact, the Malawi Government together with development partners facilitated the establishment of community-bas...

The major objective of this study was to determine knowledge, attitudes and practices about HIV testing services and the uptake of this service amongst girls aged 15-19 in selected secondary schools in Malawi. A questionnaire was administered to 457 students and 18 focus group discussions and 45 in-depth interviews were conducted. The study found t...

This paper analyses the impacts of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) using a balanced four-year panel of 461 households from 2004/5, 2006/7, 2008/9 and 2010/11 agricultural seasons. We find evidence of economy wide and input market effects of the subsidy programme. The economy-wide effects of the subsidy programme are strong particularly due...

A qualitative study comprising 91 focus group discussions (FGDs) of adult married men and women and 21 key informant interviews (KIIs) was conducted in Malawi in 2008. The purpose of the study was to explore the knowledge, perceptions and practices towards contraceptives and family planning. Data were analyzed using content analysis. The perceived...

The Farm Input Subsidy Programme targets households for subsidized farm inputs, and usually it is the head of the household who receives the coupons. Since households tend to have multiple plots which are controlled by different members of the household, there may be intra-household issues that arise in the use of farm inputs available to the house...

This article demonstrates the politics of the policy processes of adaptation using the case of crop diversification. Competing narratives among different actors illustrate the complexity of practically translating crop diversification in practice. The context in which policy processes take place matter a great deal since adaptation policies' chance...

This paper uses primary and secondary data sources to discuss changes in the management of the Lake Chilwa floodplain, Malawi, a wetland that is an important source of livelihood for over a million people who subsist on agriculture, fishing and birds. These common pool resources are under pressure, largely due to the economic value of the wetland a...

It has been argued that the ambiguities in Malawian customary tenure may aggravate processes of social differentiation and class formation. The article investigates this viewpoint based on the situation in the rural areas in Malawi’s Southern Region. The political economy at national as well as local level does not indicate that accumulation of cus...

This article reports on factors influencing participation in the poverty-oriented public works programme in rural Malawi and analyses the determinants of the revealed positive socio-economic impact among the participants. The programme targets poor households through self-selection by offering a wage below the official minimum for rural areas. The...

Poverty remains a growing concern in many developing countries. Limited accessibility to production factors and credit facilities in the formal financial system by the poor is usually identified as one of the causes of poverty in Malawi. In response to this problem, there are many institutions that provide credit facilities to the poor. Most of the...

This policy brief was authored by the CROSCOG (Cross Sectoral Commons Governance in Southern Africa) project team This Policy Brief is based on synthetic studies undertaken by participants in the Cross Sectoral Commons Governance in Southern Africa (CROSCOG) project between 2007 and 2009, funded by the European Commission (European Commission: FP6-...