Malawi has issued additional solicitations for consultants for a series of river control and management tasks under its Shire River Basin Management Program. Responses now are due April 11 and April 30.

The Ministry of Water Development and Irrigation previously invited expressions of interest by March 12 for a half-dozen tasks in the Shire Basin.

The World Bank said the Shire is a critical river basin in Malawi from the perspective of hydropower, irrigation, water supply, catchment management, environmental and social services, flood management, and navigation. It is one of several Malawi basins being eyed for multi-purpose infrastructure investments in water resources.

The major hydroelectric facilities in Malawi are on the Shire River: 24-MW Nkula Falls A, 100-MW Nkula Falls B, 40-MW Tedzani 1 & 2, 52.7-MW Tedzani 3, and 64.8-MW Kapichira Falls. Electricity Supply Corp. of Malawi plans to double the size of Kapichira to 128 MW.

NEW YORK--Malawi continues to attract foreign direct investors owing to the administration of President Joyce Banda which is accommodative as well as democratic, hence creating a fertile ground for doing business, the Malawi News Agency has established.

The development was revealed in an interview with President and Chief Executive Officer for Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Elizabeth Littlefield after she paid a courtesy call to Pres Banda who is in the United States for 67th UN General Assembly.

Littlefield said her corporation has developed business interest in Malawi to help Banda’s administration grow the economy and create employment for both skilled and unskilled indigenous Malawians.

“We’ve had a very fruitful discussion with the Malawian President where we outlined our business plans and would start ground work immediately when all the legal business documents have been finalised,” Littlefield, accompanied by the corporation’s two directors said.

“We also expressed our excitement at having the second female president in Africa and the opportunities for investment and doing business that available in Africa in general and Malawi in particular,” Littlefield added.

The CEO added the Overseas Private Investment Corporation works in liaison with the US government to help grow developing economies, by financing and insurance policies for investors to realise meaningful and sustainable development.

“Our interest first and foremost is to bring relevant investment to Malawi which would ultimately add value to people in the beneficiary country, in this case Malawi,” Littlefield emphasised.

She assured that the corporation had particular interest in Malawi because Pres Banda had demonstrated political will in working with development partners through restoring bilateral relations with the US and Britain.

Littlefield, therefore, said the corporation would start with Government of Malawi’s priorities in the area of agriculture, tourism and infrastructure development to ensure their activities were in line with home-grown development policies.

The Overseas Private Investment Corporation which is the US Government’s development financing institution with its establishments in more than 150 countries worldwide, most of which are in Africa.

Before Banda took over the leadership, Malawi’s diplomatic relations with major donors like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank had soured, besides the country’s traditional development agencies from Great Britain and the US also had withdrawn most of their aid.

JOHANNESBURG –To increase food security in Africa and stem the disastrous human and environmental costs of indoor cooking with charcoal, the Soros Economic Development Fund and the Industrialization Fund for Developing Countries is investing nearly $9 million in CleanStar Mozambique, with the option to invest more in potential pan-African expansion.
 
This is the third round of investment for CleanStar Mozambique which is also backed by CleanStar Ventures, Novozymes, ICM, and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The Soros Economic Development Fund becomes the biggest cash investor in the $20 million venture and will provide $6 million to CleanStar Mozambique. IFU will contribute approximately $3 million.
 
“CleanStar Mozambique has found a commercial and scalable way to alleviate poverty in Africa,” said Stewart Paperin, president of the Soros Economic Development Fund. “This venture creates jobs, increases food security, and has sustainable environmental benefits. We’d like to see the charcoal replacement business operate successfully in dozens of countries throughout the continent.”
 
With over $10 billion spent annually on charcoal-based cooking across the rapidly-urbanizing continent, CleanStar’s business model is likely to be feasible in over 40 major African cities.
 
The new investment will create 1,000 new jobs in Mozambique by late 2014 and will help to substantially improve the incomes of smallholder farmers. CleanStar Mozambique will be able to support 2,000 smallholder farming families to increase production of nutritious staple food crops and surplus cassava, with the latter being used to make ethanol-based cooking fuel.
 
The investment will also help the company expand its cooking fuel distribution and retail infrastructure to reach 80,000 customers in Maputo by late 2014. Each ethanol cook stove will enable net greenhouse gas emissions reductions of approximately eight tons of CO2-equivalent per year versus a traditional charcoal stove. Taken to scale, this business will significantly reduce harmful emissions that contribute to climate change.
“Our team has seen this venture move from concept into implementation in record time,” said Finn Jønck, IFU’s Managing Director. “We are delighted to now come on board.”
 
Unique business model

CleanStar Mozambique is an integrated food, energy, and forest protection business that works with farmers to grow a variety of crops that it then processes into food and cooking fuel products for sale in local markets.
 
CleanStar Mozambique helps participating farmers transition from slash-and-burn subsistence farming to a “conservation-agriculture” based approach that produces sustainable crop surpluses and boosts their income. The company provides the farmers with improved planting materials and technical assistance and then purchases whatever food products the families themselves do not consume at rural agricultural centers based around the company’s first integrated processing plant in Dondo. 
 
Surplus cassava is converted to ethanol-based cooking fuel, flour, and chicken feed, while surplus beans, sorghum, pulses, and soya are processed into packaged food products for sale in Mozambique’s cities. 
 
Each bottle of cooking fuel used in Maputo generates extra income and food for Mozambican farmers and prevents further deforestation from charcoal use. Over time, this steady flow of cash will help strengthen rural livelihoods and restore degraded landscapes.
 
The cooking fuel is bottled and sold along with modern cookstoves to low-income households in Maputo via the company’s own network of branded retail outlets. CleanStar’s cooking solution is a cleaner, faster, and safer alternative to charcoal, and priced to be directly cost competitive in urban markets. Charcoal prices have doubled in Maputo over the last three years and households now spend about a dollar a day on the fuel which requires valuable time to ignite and use. Cooking indoors with charcoal also seriously damages the health of those exposed to the noxious fumes, most often women and children.
 
Circle of investors

Founded in 2010 by CleanStar Ventures, the Mozambican company has attracted a growing number of investors from around the world.  Novozymes of Denmark invested into the business at early concept stage in mid-2010, joined shortly thereafter by ICM of the United States. 
 
In November 2011, Bank of America Merrill Lynch joined as strategic carbon partner through an innovative transaction that received “Bioenergy Finance Deal of the Year” award fromEnvironmental Finance magazine and a Special Commendation in the category of “Sustainable Investment of the Year” from the Financial Times.  
 
Referring to the third round of financing, Greg Murray, Chairman of CleanStar Mozambique commented, “The level of interest from the impact investing community was very strong. It became clear through the process that SEDF and IFU bring the right combination of vision, values and capability that the venture needs to move to scale, while staying true to its mission”. 
 
“We have come a long way with CleanStar since Novozymes first invested in Mozambique in 2010,” said Novozymes Executive Vice President Thomas Nagy.  “We are now seeing an integrated food and biofuel business deliver sustainable improvements to family health and nutrition, rural incomes and the environment in a way that attracts professional investors with deep pockets”.

BLANTYRE--Education partners of Microsoft employees in Malawi are amongst the first people in the world to sample the software giant’s latest operating system, Windows 8, which is set to launch on October 26 globally.

John Nielsen, General Manager of Microsoft Customer Service & Support (CSS) for Europe, Middle East, Asia and Americas (EMEA) unveiled the Windows 8 Tuesday night during a product demonstration at St Andrews International School in Blantyre.

The Windows 8 is built based on Metro design language and introduces a new form of "Windows 8-style software", which may only be obtained through Windows Store. Windows 8 also features a new start screen, Internet Explorer 10, native support for USB 3.0, a new Windows Defender that combats malware (instead of only spyware), Windows To Go, and support for UEFI SecureBoot.

Windows 8 is available in four major editions, namely Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Enterprise, and Windows RT. The first three have almost the same hardware requirements as that of Windows 7, while Windows RT runs on tablet computers with ARM architecture and has different hardware requirements. The new software has already been unveiled this week in Nokia Lumia phones.

“We’re proud to be able to provide a powerful tool that will increase productivity of business and individuals, and provide every day solutions to life. Windows 8 is about creativity and opening doors that were closed before,” said Nielsen, who was leading a mission of 15 Microsoft engineers in Blantyre.

The Windows 8 precursor was part of activities to mark the successful conclusion of a two-week ICT boot camp that the Microsoft employees, working on a voluntary basis, conducted with teachers and students working under the Malawi Learning Partnership (MLP) project.

Nielsen said Windows 8 is an ubiquitous and user-friendly software that has been designed to host several applications while offering simplicity, multi-purpose and beauty.

On Tuesday, Microsoft employees presented a donation of 40 laptops to Jacaranda School of Orphans and St Andrews International. Jacaranda, which runs free primary and secondary schools for orphans, received 20 laptops while St Andrews, received the remainder. The British school is coordinating the MLP project and will use the laptops to connect and host up to 13 government-run secondary schools.

“It is my vision that whether a student comes from a rural village or underprivileged background, they are equally empowered with the knowledge and tools to access ICT through these computers,” said Christopher Scutt, the director of E-school at Saints.

During the two weeks, the Microsoft employees provided ICT training to teachers from various secondary schools as well as boot camps for girls aspiring to embrace digital technology and ICT as career. The MLP aims to connect both private and public schools to the internet as a way of helping them gain access to ICT as a vital education resource.
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©2012 The Maravi Post. Reproduction without acknowledgment prohibited.