The residents of Katunga village in Malawi can now drink their water without fear of it making them sick. That wasn’t always the case.

Before the Malawi government granted the village the management rights to a nearby forest plantation in 2000, the people of Katunga had to drink from unprotected wells – old and unhygienic wells that were a perfect breeding ground for a range of water-borne diseases.

One of the conditions of the forest handover was that all revenues derived from the plantation be used for community development initiatives, including re-investment in forest management. Digging new wells was one of the first items on the community's development agenda.

The handing over of forestry plantations to communities was funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD). NORAD, through the Malawi Forestry Department, undertook the initiative to improve local livelihoods by empowering almost one hundred local communities to sustainably manage the nearby forests on which they so heavily rely.

An example of this reliance is demonstrated in a CIFOR study documenting how the Katunga plantation acts as a safety net to a quarter of the village’s people during periods of poor crop harvests or low economic activity.

Organizations assisting Katunga in managing its forests and using its proceeds for community development included CIFOR’s Adaptive and Collaborative Management team (ACM), Malawi’s Forestry Research Institute, the local District Forestry Office and local NGO, Inter-Aide, which specializes in developing potable water facilities.

Much of the success in Katunga was a result of the villagers’ ability to reach consensus among themselves and to successfully negotiate with outside organizations on how to develop their community.

Such skills don’t always come naturally. Often they have to be learned. In Katunga’s case, the skills were developed with the help of CIFOR’s ACM team with its long, research-based experience in community forest management.

With ACM’s knowledge, the Katunga community was able to effectively make a proposal to Inter-Aide and conduct negotiations that were acceptable to both parties. Under the arrangement, the community agreed to contribute labour to dig the wells and provide 12,000 burnt bricks. In turn, Inter-Aide was to provide pipes, cement and skilled labour. Without CIFOR’s Adaptive and Collaborative Management strategies, such a win-win outcome may have been harder to achieve.

In nearby Kalimbuka village, the story is not so encouraging. A lack of ACM skills has meant villagers continue to pay a heavy health price from having to drink from old and unclean wells. Without the necessary collaborative and negotiation skills needed to reach an acceptable degree of consensus, the use of sustainable forest management principles to enhance community development remains severely retarded.

Obviously Katunga attributes its success in reducing water-borne diseases to its new wells. More importantly, from a long-term forest management perspective, the villagers say the wells would not have eventuated without first having the skills to reach agreement on how the forest should be used to improve their lives.

For Katunga, the community’s continued participation in the ACM process has not only equipped it with the social skills needed to mobilize resources for establishing essential services such as clean water. It has also allowed the community to address social welfare concerns, such as the needs of orphans and disadvantaged groups.

Meanwhile, the people of Kalimbuka lament their lack of the organizational, collaborative and adaptive skills so central to the ACM process, and thus central to successful community forestry arrangements.

Hopefully this will soon change, as CIFOR continues to work in Kalimbuka and its ACM processes take root in the community. The cooperative efforts between CIFOR researchers and forestry officers is instilling a sense of optimism that Kalimbuka will adopt the strategies needed to reach agreement on the kinds of sustainable forest management strategies that have tangible benefits for the entire community.