Authors: Tikondane Vega, Malawi LIFE-AR Communication officer and Hiire Ismail, Uganda LIFE-AR Communication officer
In December 2025, a delegation from Uganda’s LIFE-AR team travelled to Malawi for a week-long learning exchange. The visit was designed to share technical insights on implementing locally led adaptation, focusing on institutional structures, community engagement, and financial management.
The Ugandan team comprised national coordinators and representatives from the pilot districts of Kibaale, Kaabong, and Pader. They met with Malawi’s LIFE-AR national team, including GESI and MEL focal points and visited district representatives. The objective was clear: share lived challenges, solutions, and innovations to strengthen LIFE-AR implementation in both countries.
Technical Insights and Practical Lessons
Institutionalizing Adaptation: The Power of a Dedicated Unit
Malawi’s Programme Implementation Unit (PIU) emerged as a cornerstone of their success. Embedded within the Ministry of Natural Resources’ Department of Environmental Affairs, the PIU ensures that LIFE-AR activities are both government-owned and technically robust. The unit’s governance structure—including a National Steering Committee, Joint Technical Committee, and LIFE-AR Task Team—clarifies roles, reduces bottlenecks, and strengthens cross-sectoral ownership.
Uganda’s team saw the value in this model, recognizing that a dedicated unit could streamline coordination, improve fund management, and reinforce government systems without bypassing them.
Monitoring and Learning That Drives Action, Not Just Reports
The exchange highlighted how LIFE-AR Uganda’s regular reviews, reflective sessions, and field engagements have created dynamic feedback loops. These processes allow the initiative to adjust course as conditions change, fostering a culture of learning that improves results and builds confidence among implementers. Malawi’s team was particularly inspired by this approach and plans to replicate Uganda’s model to strengthen their own implementation and share lessons with other Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and the international climate finance community.
Communities at the Heart of Governance
The visit and discussions reinforced a critical lesson: adaptation works best when communities lead. Malawi’s use of village development community committees (VDCs) ensures that climate investments align with local priorities, while Uganda’s Parish Climate Change Committees (PCCCs) have been instrumental in building trust and transparency. Both countries demonstrated how early, deliberate community engagement ensures that adaptation interventions are relevant, locally owned, and effective.
Financial Management: Balancing Speed and Safeguards
Financial systems were a major focus. Malawi’s structured fund flow—with separate accounts for LIFE-AR and rigorous controls—ensures transparency and accountability. Funds move from development partners to a holding account before being disbursed to districts. Strict bank reconciliation procedures and burn rate requirements (75% of advanced funds must be utilized before new disbursements) prevent misuse.
In Uganda, funds are processed within a day due to the efficient relationship between the LIFE-AR national secretariat and the fund manager. Malawi noted Uganda’s rapid disbursement as a best practice for ensuring timely implementation. Uganda, in turn, will explore separate accounts for LIFE-AR funds to protect resources from diversion.
Political Leadership: Turning Commitment into Action
Both countries highlighted the role of political champions in driving adaptation. In Malawi, high-level endorsement from the Minister of Natural Resources ensures alignment with national priorities and facilitates resource mobilization. Uganda’s engagement of local political figures in community meetings has been critical for building trust and accelerating implementation.
What’s Next: Adopting and Adapting Best Practices
Malawi’s Plans:
- Institutionalising knowledge sharing platforms: Malawi will adopt Uganda’s Community of Practice (CoP) model, enhancing collaboration and knowledge-sharing among stakeholders. They will introduce webinars, inviting experts able to link climate science with activities done in the districts, with the view to help scaling up the initiative in the long-term.
- Boosting Visibility: To maximize impact, Malawi will ensure full media coverage of LIFE-AR activities at all levels, showcasing their innovative, community-driven approach.
Uganda’s Plans:
- Establishing a Dedicated Unit: Uganda will explore setting up a PIU-like structure to improve coordination, efficiency, and fund management.
- Separate Accounts for Transparency: To safeguard LIFE-AR funds, Uganda will consider dedicated accounts, ensuring resources are used as intended.
- Embedding Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI): Uganda will prioritize GESI integration from the outset, ensuring that adaptation interventions are equitable and effective.
- Better Documentation and Storytelling: Uganda will focus on improved documentation of learning, evidence-sharing, and storytelling to strengthen accountability and influence policy beyond pilot districts.
Continuing What Works:
Both countries will maintain their focus on community-led governance and political engagement, ensuring that adaptation remains responsive, inclusive, and locally owned. The exchange reinforced that locally led adaptation thrives when communities, governments, and technical teams collaborate as equals and share and exchange lessons learned to improve effectiveness.
The Uganda–Malawi peer-learning visit was a technical collaboration that turned challenges into solutions. By bringing together practitioners from national to community levels, LIFE-AR created a space where real-world problems were met with practical, actionable insights from experience.
This exchange proved that when governments, technical teams, and communities collaborate as equals and share learning, adaptation becomes more than a project, efficient and sustainable innovations and solutions can be found.
As LIFE-AR is moving forward in the 10 participating countries, Malawi and Uganda’s shared lessons will inspire other Front Runner Countries, and beyond. The collective knowledge of all Front Runner Countries on how to learn, adapt, and lead together, will further demonstrate that the best solutions often come from those closest to the challenges.
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