Communities affected by the Mpatamanga Hydropower Project fear for their future
by Elias Jika
“We are tired of the endless project preparation studies. We want to continue on with our lives.”
For exactly a decade, communities in Malawi impacted by the construction of the Mpatamanga Hydropower Project have been living in uncertainty. The Project, which promises to deliver a dam of 350 megawatts of electricity, has left these communities exhausted by an endless project preparation process. Many have had their lives put on hold, with some passing away before seeing any resolution, as demanded by the affected communities. The prolonged delays have left residents in villages like Chaswanthaka, Kambalame, and Chikira in a state of limbo, unable to make long-term plans or live comfortably on their own land.
About the Mpatamanga Hydropower Project
The Mpatamanga Hydropower Project involves the construction, operation, and maintenance of a greenfield hydroelectric power plant with a generating capacity of 358.5 megawatts (MW), composed of two plants — the 301 MW peaking plant at the Main Dam and the 57.5 MW baseload downstream plant at the Regulating Dam. The project will be located around 40 km west of Blantyre on the Shire River, between the existing Tedzani and Kapichira hydropower plants. The Project’s main transmission line, 400 kilovolts (kV) (64 km), will cross the same districts and connect the Mpatamanga powerhouse to Phombeya Substation and the national grid. The project is being developed by the company — Mpatamanga Hydropower Project Limited.
The Project is to be developed on a build-own-operate-transfer basis by Mpatamanga Hydropower Project Limited — and the Government of Malawi. Finance will be provided by EDF, Scatec, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Government of Malawi, using funds from the World Bank Group, as well as debt from development finance institutions, to be coordinated by the IFC (the lenders). The World Bank is proposing to provide a USD 350 million loan to the Malawi Government. Scatec, and its venture partners British International Investment (BII) and Norfund, and EDF are majority shareholders in the project and will own a total 55 percent of the project. EDF will own 27.5 percent, while Scatec has an ownership of 14 percent, and the venture partners the remaining 13.5 percent. The Government of Malawi will own 30 percent, and IFC 15 percent of the total project shareholding.
The Beginning of an Endless Journey
The Government of Malawi began its community engagement activities in 2015 to prepare the affected communities for resettlement. However, the process has been marred by delays and a lack of meaningful consultation. Affected communities were not adequately informed about the project’s design and plans, with many learning about it through the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) studies. The lack of timely and accurate information has left many villagers feeling excluded and frustrated. Even though the Mpatamanga Hydropower Limited has improved the frequency of meetings they hold with the affected communities, villagers feel that the project company chooses when and what information to provide to them. They feel that there is so much information gap, and requests for meetings for the project company to answer questions that they have always gone unanswered. “We have been requesting meetings with the project team so that they answer the questions that we have been getting from villagers, but they never organize such meetings. They instead showed up for their monthly meetings and kept on repeating the same messages. So many people are tired and frustrated, and that is why our turnout to their meetings have been getting lower and lower,” shared by one member of the grievance redress committee.
Community-Led Research and Advocacy
The Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation(CHRR) and International Accountability Project (IAP) have been supporting the affected communities since October 2020. Through the Early Warning System (EWS), IAP learned of the World Bank’s proposed investment in the project. IAP, through one of our partners in Malawi, CHRR, shared the project information with the affected communities to inform their decision-making as the project development proceeded. It was from this early engagement that we learned that the affected communities from Chaswanthaka and Kambalame villages have known of the project since 2015 and have been facing adverse impacts from the project. At the same time, we also discovered that the Government of Malawi had just restarted the ESIA studies just two months prior in August 2020.
CHRR and IAP supported the affected communities to conduct a community-led research to document their knowledge and experience with the project, any complaints and grievances that they had, and to make recommendations for addressing them. The community-led research revealed that;
- The affected communities of Chaswanthaka and Kambalamane villages had been stopped from developing their lives through their farmland, homes, and other assets.
- The development of the Mpatamanga Hydropower Project halted the reconstruction of the Mpatamanga bridge, a very crucial development infrastructure for the communities of Kambalame and Chikira. The bridge was destroyed by Cyclone Idai in 2019 and plans were underway to reconstruct it. The Ministry of Energy has denied responsibility for the plans to stop the reconstruction of the bridge. However, it is within the communities’ best knowledge as communicated to them by their member of parliament that the reconstruction of the Mpatamanga bridge was stopped due to the development of the Mpatamanga dam project since the bridge is within the project construction area. The bridge allows them to cross between Blantyre and Neno to access services, including school, health clinic and market.
- The affected communities had not been meaningfully consulted on the project design and plans. Community members noted that they had learned about the Project through the ESIA studies, while others heard rumors that a hydropower dam would be constructed in their villages.
- The affected communities had not been provided with adequate and timely project information to inform their decision-making in the project processes. One of the many challenges that the communities have been facing is the lack of understanding of the different activities under the project and of the plans for community engagement. In a few instances, it was reported that consultants invited a select few or groups of people to attend meetings held locally within their respective villages. However, those attendees often did not understand what the meetings were about and could not articulate the exact purpose of the meetings.
- The affected communities did not have access to a grievance redress mechanism, project-level or otherwise. A project-level grievance redress mechanism is a formal system set up by project developers to receive, assess, and resolve complaints or concerns raised by stakeholders, including project-affected persons. The affected communities reported that the only complaint filing mechanism they were informed to use was to lodge their complaints with the national courts, as told to them by the land surveyors from the Ministry of Lands. However, they reported that they were discouraged from doing so by the same land surveyors, who told them that they could not possibly win the court case, and they would only end up losing their money and time.
- The affected communities reported irregularities on the resettlement planning process, and there was poor sensitization on the process of resettlement planning and asset valuation. Sensitization meetings organized by the ESIA consultant were held in Chaswanthaka and Chikira villages only, while Kambalame village was left out. Moreover, only a few people — about 12 — were invited to attend the meetings.
- The affected communities of Chaswanthaka and Kambalame villages have reported that since 2015, they have been suffering socioeconomic and psycho-socio and mental distress caused by the Project due to their involvement in the initial E&S studies. The survey found that 80% of the survey respondents reported experiencing more stress or worry than before the Project was announced.
The results of the community-led research and the recommendations made for their address were packaged in the community-led research report and shared with the project actors and financiers of the project. They have ever since been used as a framework for engagement and for the project developers to address the community grievances.
Some Positive Progress
Since my last blog article reporting on the impacts of the Mpatamanga Hydropower Project by the Government of Malawi, CHRR and IAP have been supporting the project-affected communities. Together, as civil society organizations, we have been engaging with the project developers and financiers. Our aim is to address the community’s concerns and grievances regarding the Project. Since then, the Government of Malawi and Mpatamanga Hydropower Limited, the incorporated entity that took over the project’s development, have made some positive progress.
Following our recommendation for the project developers to do so as required by the World Bank policies, a Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP) was drafted to ensure meaningful community participation. There have also been improvements in the frequency of meetings held in the communities; monthly information-sharing meetings were established. Additionally, following our recommendation to do so in order to comply with local and international regulations, a grievance redress mechanism was created, which included community-level grievance redress committees for documentation of grievances. Later on, suggestion boxes were placed in each community for the collection of complaints and other concerns community members might have regarding the project. The project team also changed its messaging, no longer restricting communities from growing long-term crops or developing their land.
A Life in Limbo
Despite the project making some positive progress in terms of its engagement with the affected communities, their biggest concern has been that the project preparation process has dragged on for years, with no clear end in sight. Villagers in Chaswanthaka and Kambalame have been living under the shadow of the Project for over eight years, while Chikira has faced uncertainty for at least four years. The constant delays have left many questioning how much longer they must wait.
“A number of villagers have had our lives stopped by this Project, and now some have passed away without seeing a resolution. How many more of us will be gone by the time the project developers are done?” lamented one community member.
Residents are afraid to invest in their land or make permanent plans, fearing that they may be displaced or lose their investments. This has created a sense of instability and anxiety, particularly in communities like Chikira, which has recently started hearing rumours that they are no longer within the physical displacement area of the project.
Lack of Clear Communication and Engagement
One of the most significant issues faced by the affected communities is the lack of clear and timely communication from the project implementers. Requests for information about timelines for compensation or resettlement are often met with vague or rude responses. In some cases, communities have been left out of crucial meetings altogether. For example, in July 2024, the Project Implementation Unit held meetings to share preliminary results of environmental and social studies with affected communities. However, Chikira was excluded from these meetings, leaving them in the dark about their resettlement status.
Benefit Sharing: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle
Despite the promised benefits of the hydropower project, there has been no meaningful discussion on how the affected communities can benefit from it. Villages like Mpindo and Mbwinja — the recently identified project-affected communities due to a change in the project design -, have not been included in any plans to address their needs, especially since they have already been suffering from water scarcity. The change in design that has led to the inclusion of Mpindo and Mbwinja villages as project-affected villages is primarily infrastructure enhancement changes, which include a 6 kilometer service road which will connect the main powerhouse to the regulating dam and a permanent operators’ village which will be established near the site. The Shire River, the only reliable water source in the area, will be restricted, leaving the Mang’anja people, who migrated to the area centuries ago to follow the Shire River, struggling to sustain their livelihoods.
Ineffective Grievance Redress Mechanism
The grievance redress mechanism, designed to address community complaints, has fallen far short of expectations. Community members report that no feedback is given on their complaints and even members of the grievance redress committee itself have filed complaints that go unanswered. The lack of transparency in the functioning of the grievance redress mechanism has left many feeling powerless and unheard.
One-Sided Engagement and Exclusion from Development Activities
The communities’ requests for meetings to discuss pertinent issues are often denied, leaving them feeling excluded from the decision-making process. Additionally, other organizations that provide humanitarian aid in the area have left the project affected villages out of community development activities because, according to the project-affected villagers, the humanitarian aid organizations do not see the need to invest in villages that have been marked for resettlement and will move out at any time. This has resulted in a lack of essential infrastructure such as school blocks and feed handouts.
Looking Forward
While some progress has been made, the affected communities continue to face significant challenges. The prolonged project preparation process, lack of clear communication, and ineffective grievance redress mechanisms have left many feeling disillusioned and forgotten. For these communities, the promise of development has come at a high cost — years of uncertainty, stress, and lost opportunities. As the Project moves forward, it is crucial that the voices of the affected communities are heard and that their needs and concerns are addressed in a meaningful and timely manner.
Elias Jika is the Program Coordinator at the International Accountability Project (IAP) and is based in Malawi.
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