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Employ­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties for local peo­ple Road con­struc­tion activ­i­ties are a source of employ­ment both for the local com­mu­ni­ty and the spe­cialised ser­vice sec­tors. The project will employ over 700 peo­ple for Nsipe – Man­gochi Turn Off Sec­tion and 1,300 peo­ple for the Man­gochi Turn Off – Man­gochi Sec­tion; a good num­ber of which will come from the local com­mu­ni­ties along the road project cor­ri­dor espe­cial­ly unskilled labour.

The employ­ment will in turn stim­u­late the infor­mal and for­mal sec­tors of the community’s econ­o­my. Con­sid­er­ing that there are many women in the project impact who are capa­ble of doing some casu­al jobs just as men, where pos­si­ble, the con­trac­tor will max­imise employ­ment of local peo­ple both men and women par­tic­u­lar­ly for the unskilled labour force. In addi­tion, the devel­op­er will make a delib­er­ate effort to employ at least 30% women.

Com­mu­ni­ties in Bal­a­ka and Ntcheu are like­ly to expe­ri­ence eco­nom­ic empow­er­ment as the reha­bil­i­ta­tion of the 55 km stretch of road between Nsipe — Chin­geni- Liwonde com­mences. The road project is expect­ed to cre­ate job oppor­tu­ni­ties for both women and men dur­ing the con­struc­tion phase, as well as pro­vide ongo­ing employ­ment for road main­te­nance after completion.

Project Coor­di­na­tor, Patrick Kaman­ga, high­light­ed that the project offers a range of job oppor­tu­ni­ties beyond con­struc­tion, thus ben­e­fit­ing many indi­vid­u­als in the area.

 “Besides the actu­al reha­bil­i­ta­tion, the project plans to plant trees along the road to pre­vent gul­ly ero­sion; pro­tect the road and mit­i­gate cli­mate change effects-these activ­i­ties will also cre­ate addi­tion­al employ­ment prospects for local com­mu­ni­ties,” Kaman­ga said.

Fur­ther­more, the influx of con­struc­tion work­ers in the region will indi­rect­ly sup­port local entre­pre­neur­ial activ­i­ties. Com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers will have oppor­tu­ni­ties to sell gro­ceries, sec­ond-hand clothes, and even rent out hous­ing to work­ers, thus boost­ing house­hold incomes.

Once com­plet­ed, the improved road will enhance eco­nom­ic activ­i­ties in agri­cul­ture, tourism, and small-scale trad­ing by increas­ing mobil­i­ty and accessibility.

The total cost of the project is esti­mat­ed at UA 45.289 mil­lion, with fund­ing con­tri­bu­tions from the African Devel­op­ment Bank (AfDB) at UA 26.6 mil­lion (59%), the Euro­pean Union (EU) at UA 15.121 mil­lion (33%), and the Gov­ern­ment of Malawi (GoM) at UA 3.568 mil­lion (8%).