Transforming districts’ food systems governance

By Cydric Damala:

The 2025 Global Food Systems Transformation Report delivers a blunt message. Across the world, food systems are straining under unprecedented pressure. Climate shocks are intensifying. Supply chains are cracking. Diet-related diseases are rising. And, in many countries, the very policies designed to address these problems sit scattered across ministries, rarely speaking to one another.

Governance is weak, coordination is thin and accountability is often reduced to slogans on paper.

The report warns that without stronger leadership and bolder institutional reform, even the most ambitious national plans will struggle to reach the people who need them most.

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Africa knows this story well.

The Malabo Declaration and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme frameworks lay out a bold continental vision for food security, resilience and agricultural transformation.

Yet the everyday reality remains shaped by old governance habits. Sectors working in silos, decisions made far from the communities they affect and fragmented actions that never quite add up to real change.

Malawi is not exempt. Its participation in global and continental food systems processes is more than diplomatic duty. It is an acknowledgment that the country understands what is at stake. Climatic shocks, rising food prices and deep nutrition challenges are tightening their grip on families across the country. Something has to change and quickly.

However, transforming Malawi’s food system is no simple task. The country has no shortage of policies on agriculture, water, nutrition, land, environment, resilience and industry.

On paper, the vision is coherent but, on the ground, it often remains fragmented. Ministries move side by side instead of together. Districts lack the structures to convene those who must act. Farmers, traders, extension workers and health teams rarely meet at the same table.

The global report’s warning echoes loudly here. When responsibilities scatter, when accountability blurs and when coordination falters, citizens pay the price. They have to confront volatile food prices, shrinking harvests and diets that grow harder to sustain.

It is into this governance gap that the GIZ-led Sustainable Transformation of Food Systems: Empowering Pathways Bottom- Up project steps with strategic clarity. Designed to strengthen local convening power, just as the 2025 global report recommends, the project is helping Malawi build governance structures it has long needed but struggled to operationalise.

In the districts of Dedza, Chikwawa and Mzimba, local authorities are establishing food systems steering committees. These are formal, multi-sectoral bodies with clear terms of reference, the authority to convene and the responsibility to coordinate.

“For the first time, our districts have a structured space where agriculture, health, gender, environment and community voices sit together with a shared mandate,” said McPherson Mwakhwawa, Director of Economic Planning and Development for Dedza District Council.

“These food systems steering committees give us the authority to convene, the clarity to coordinate and the confidence that our actions are finally pulling in the same direction for the people we serve,” he said.

National actors are also paying attention to this momentum.

Dr. Andrew Jamali of the National Planning Commission noted that the district-level progress aligns strongly with the country’s long-term aspirations.

“If we want to achieve the goals of the Malawi 2063 First 10-Year Implementation Plan, then coordination at district level cannot be optional. It must be the engine,” he said.

“When districts work in a unified way, we accelerate our ambitions for wealth creation, food security and improved human development. These structures are an important step in closing the gap between planning and real impact,” Jamali said.

The committees are already addressing governance weaknesses flagged in the global report. Challenges of unclear leadership, weak institutional coherence and fragmented decision-making are being addressed.

By establishing platforms where agriculture, nutrition, health, environment, gender, trade and community voices meet, the project is weaving together actors who once worked in isolation, shaping what Malawians grow, sell, buy and eat.

To drive coordination at national level, the project is supporting the government, enabling it to strengthen similar structures.

The government has created a new National Steering Committee on Food Systems Transformation. Its role is simple but powerful: guide policy, shape laws and align national programmes.

Beneath it sits a National Technical Working Group, a broad team of government experts, development partners, researchers, civil society and the media. They design programmes, refine policies, generate evidence and build capacity.

Sub-technical working groups, below them, take on the detailed work—pinpointing priorities, tracking progress and solving emerging bottlenecks and providing the linkage to district level strictures.

At the top of this architecture is the Minister of Agriculture, who holds the authority to convene sectors and lead the national food systems transformation agenda.

Not surprisingly, experts are lauding collaboration, which seems to be embedded in the initiative.

“Strong food systems’ governance improves access to healthy diets and reduces preventable deaths caused by malnutrition and diet-related diseases,” Lottie Makina, Principal Food and Nutrition Officer for Dedza district.

“When sectors coordinate, people eat better. It’s as simple as that,” Makina explained.

In Chikwawa District, progress seems similar.

“For years, everyone worked hard but in isolation,” said Angela Masapiko, Food and Nutrition Officer for Chikwawa District Council.

“Now we finally have a space where we plan together, act together and hold each other accountable. It is changing the way our district thinks about food and nutrition,” she said.

What is emerging, therefore, is far more than institutional reform; it is the early architecture of a new food governance culture. One built on collaboration, shared accountability and a recognition that food systems are only as strong as the relationships connecting their actors.

Districts are, for the first time, systematically analysing their food systems, identifying leverage points and aligning their strategies with national frameworks and global expectations.

This bottom-up strengthening is exactly the direction envisioned in global food systems debates. It brings into reality empowered local systems that are capable of driving transformation from the ground up.

And, in this sense, Malawi is beginning to stitch itself more firmly into the global food systems movement.

As Dedza, Chikwawa, and Mzimba chart collaborative, inclusive pathways forward, they offer a glimpse of what a resilient and equitable food system could become—one district, one committee, one pathway at a time.