Using CLA to Respond to COVID-19 in Malawi

Titukulane is a $75 million five-year USAID-funded Resilience Food Security Activity running from 2019 to 2024. Titukulane, meaning “let’s develop together” in Chichewa, is being implemented by CARE together with Emmanuel International, National Smallholder Farmers of Malawi, International Food Policy Research Institute, Save the Children and WaterAid. The project aims to support implementation and ensure effectiveness of the Malawi National Resilience Strategy, which is established to guide investments in agriculture, reduce impacts and improve recovery from shocks, promote household resilience, strengthen management of Malawi’s natural resources, and facilitate coordination between government institutions, civil society organizations, and development partners.

Titukulane used the Collaborating, Learning and Adapting framework to respond to COVID-19. Robust learning from the Malawi COVID Rapid Gender Analysis informed adaptive management changes to Activity plans while leveraging the community entry phase to collaborate with external stakeholders, establish initial monitoring and evaluation for learning systems, and use data-driven decision-making. Adapting Activity plans to respond to COVID-19 allowed Titukulane to reach more than 73,000 people, fostering a culture of openness, and set the tenor for continuous adaptive management.