Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests in Malawi

Malawi’s forests are under severe threat due to an over reliance on illegal and unsustainably produced charcoal for urban cooking and heating fuel. The country’s high population growth is adding even more pressure to the situation.

More than 96% of Malawian households rely on firewood and charcoal as their primary cooking fuels, and more than three quarters of all urban households rely on charcoal as their primary source of cooking and heating energy, which is the most significant driver of deforestation and forest degradation.

In order to maintain forest cover and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, Malawi needs innovative solutions that prioritize the cooking and heating energy needs of urban residents while improving forest management and the country’s regulatory environment for forest resources.

Modern Cooking for Healthy Forests (MCHF) aims to reduce illegal and unsustainable charcoal demand, by increasing adoption of alternative cooking energies and fuel-efficient cooking technologies, increasing sustainable wood fuel supply production, and strengthening Malawi’s business and regulatory enabling environment.

MCHF is:

· Implementing a landscape approach that addresses wood fuel supply and demand, and reduces underlying drivers of forest cover loss.

· Developing inclusive and sustainable market systems across alternative cooking energies, and forestry value chains by engaging a wide range of actors, identifying leverage points that overcome market constraints, and facilitating market-based solutions that utilize local systems and resources.

· Engaging the private sector and mobilizing financing, investment, and additional resources that mobilize and increase investments for the alternative fuels, fuel-efficient technology, and improved forest governance and forest land restoration.

· Building on and advancing key Government of Malawi laws, policies and strategies, such as the Forestry Act, Malawi Growth and Development Strategy, National Charcoal Strategy, National Energy Policy, and National Forestry Policy & Act.

· Strengthening local capacity for self-reliance and sustainability by prioritizing local partners, working with GoM institutions, implementing facilitative market system approaches, and supporting human and institutional capacity development.