‘But We Can’t Make Them Drink’: Understanding Community Ownership in the Namwera and Chiponde Afforestation Project

Abstract

This article explores the application and viability of a participatory development model through an examination of the barriers to community ownership apparent within the Namwera and Chiponde Afforestation Project (NCAP); a community-initiated forestry project developed in response to wood-fuel scarcity in the Mangochi District of Southern Malawi. Despite its participatory design, project stakeholders continued to express aspirations for increased material sponsorship, which project facilitators considered to be incompatible with the guiding principle of the participant driven development model-ownership. Conflicting views concerning sponsorship illustrate the degree to which the regional development context, defined by satisfying immediate needs, challenges community ownership of the NCAP. To that end, as a case the NCAP embodies both the possibilities and the constraints faced by these types of initiatives and the development model that underpins them.