Shigeki Komatsubara, Acting United Nations (UN) Resident Coordinator emphasised the need for Malawi to exercise positivity in climate change by working together in creating new opportunities that would create more jobs and income from climate change.

Komatsubara made the remarks on Friday in Lilongwe during a High Level Round table on Resilience that not everything about climate change is bad hence the need to prepare reducing the impact through different innovations, it (climate change) gives an opportunity to try new ways of doing things.

“There is need to come up with more concrete ways of helping communities to diversify agriculture and better ways of creating compost in their villages and make new businesses from technology,”  said Komatsubara.

According to Dr Yanira Mtupanyama, Ministry of Natural Resources and Climate Change Principal Secretary said climate change is the biggest problem to sustain development in the country.

“The change in climate is a very big problem in the country and it is also a threat to sustain development, so there is need for Malawi to look at the best agricultural practices and how such practices can be used,” said Mtupanyama

Denis Zingeni, Balaka District Council Chief Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Officer said the Council, through the Promoting Sustainable Partnership for Empowered Resilience (PROSPER) Project, is bringing in interventions which can bring resilience to households,

“We are trying to bring resilience to households more especially to farmers by looking at climate smart technology interventions such as irrigation farming, livestock production and crop diversification to run away from the shocks which the district is experiencing,” said Zingeni.

Zainabu White, a lead farmer from Balaka said the PROSPER Project has helped them a lot in mitigating impacts of climate change such as drought and other natural disasters.

“The project of PROSPER has helped us a lot in our farms deal with the impact of drought, floods and also dry spell in the district,” said Zainabu.

The Round table on Resilience was held under the theme of “Looking at Best Practices in Climate Change in Malawi to Inform Government Policy” with the aim of showcasing the achievements of resilience building interventions in Malawi and reflects on the best practices in ending poverty, food insecurity and climate change.