SAFFACC Team
Francis Mkanda (PhD)
Francis is an agriculturist, and natural resources management expert with more than 20 years’ experience in east and southern Africa. Most recently, he was a Technical Adviser to a project funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)/Global Environmental Facility (GEF) on Mainstreaming Sustainable Forest Management in the Woodlands of Western Tanzania also loosely known as Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) whose goal was to ensure that Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) secures ecosystems and biodiversity values while providing a buffer to the Congolian Rain Forests for food security, and sustainable livelihoods. One of the approaches the project used was to promote crop diversification by encouraging farmers to use alternative crops to tobacco, e.g., sunflower, peanuts, and horticultural ones, all of which have economic value as high as tobacco, in certain cases, e.g., sunflower, higher. To add value to these crops, the project provided sunflower/peanut oil processing machine.
Senior Research Fellow
Dr Elizabeth Mkandawire
Dr Elizabeth Mkandawire is a seasoned researcher and development practitioner with over 15 years of experience in gender research and advocacy. She holds a PhD in Rural Development Planning from the University of Pretoria. Her work focuses on integrating gender into development processes, with particular emphasis on food systems, men’s involvement in maternal and Child health, adolescent girls’ empowerment, and gender-transformative programming. She led the conceptualisation of the child marriage, teen pregnancy, and school dropout nexus—now a flagship programme of Ipas, a global reproductive justice NGO. Elizabeth has also mentored early-career researchers and continues to champion the participation of women and girls in science, technology, and research.
Her expertise spans a wide range of policy domains, including food systems, agriculture, and sexual and reproductive health. She has played a pivotal role in supporting the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) across the continent, including providing guidance for the development of National Agricultural Policies in six African countries. As Project Manager of the Food Systems Research Network for Africa (FSNet-Africa) at the University of Pretoria, she has helped shape international policy dialogue and influenced the inclusion of innovative research approaches into the FAO’s guidelines on Science-Policy Interfaces.
Elizabeth is also a skilled science communicator and advocate. She has produced over 50 communication outputs—including opinion pieces, blogs, and documentaries—translating complex research into accessible content for diverse audiences. In addition to academic publications in international peer-reviewed journals, her writing has been featured in The Conversation Africa, Farmers’ Weekly, and the UN Chronicle. She is frequently invited to speak on international platforms and has been featured as an expert on both radio and television. Through her communication and advocacy efforts, she continues to raise awareness on critical issues related to gender, food systems, and inclusive development across the continent.
Senior Research Fellow
Professor Mafaniso Hara (PhD)
Mafaniso Hara is a Professor of Natural Resource Governance with more than 40 years of experience in Southern Africa. In the last decade, he led two large European Union-funded research regional projects, namely Cross Sectoral Commons Governance in Southern Africa (CROSCOG) and Defragmenting Resource Management in Southern Africa (DARMA). He is currently a core member of the Living Landscapes in Action Project team funded by Oak Foundation at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies at the University of the Western Cape. His developmental and research interests are in investigating and implementing viable institutional arrangements for natural resource governance; incentives for collective action in natural resource governance; integration of stakeholder knowledge for an ecosystems approach to natural resource governance; food systems and climate change; convivial conservation; and Community-led Nature-base Solutions. Professor Hara is a member of the Policy Framework for Reform and Strategy for Fisheries and Aquaculture in Africa (PFRS), and the Africa Policy Research Network for Fisheries & Aquaculture.
Senior Research Fellow
Professor David Munthali (PhD)
David Munthali is an Entomologist with more than 40 years’ experience teaching at Universities in Botswana and Malawi; including providing pest diagnostic services to farmers and front-line agricultural extension staff; and developing and delivering short courses for farmers and agricultural extension staff on beekeeping, pest management and use of agrochemicals. He has developed contextualized training materials in beekeeping, pest management, and climate-smart agriculture, and has research experience on major pests of crops in Malawi and Botswana, including root vegetables, cucurbits, cereals, legumes, fruits, and brassicas.
Senior Research Fellow
Dumisani Chirambo (PhD)
Dumisani Chirambo is an analyst, social entrepreneur, and researcher with over 15 years of experience in the fields of Climate Risk Management, Project Management, Climate Finance, Microfinance, Environmental Management and Assessment, and Environmental Law and Policy. Alumina of Climate-KIC (European Institute of Innovation and Technology) and was the Unleash Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Innovation Lab. Research Fellow at the Earth System Governance Project.
Research Fellow
Munday Space Makoko (MSc)
Munday is a development programme management specialist with close to 40 years’ experience in development programming in Africa and beyond. His main areas of experience include programme development and management, monitoring and evaluation, financial management, gender analysis and mainstreaming, integrated rural development, micro, small and medium enterprise development, technology development and transfer and democratic and decentralized governance.
Munday is current working as Programme Coordinator for two government and donor financed programmes worth over USD150 million Dollars. The main thrust of the programmes is the development of smallholder farmer-managed medium scale climate proofed irrigation schemes across Malawi with a catchment management and conservation approach. Before then Munday worked for national and international organizations at both the national and international level with outstanding achievements. At the national level Munday was one of the pioneers and second in command at the Malawi Industrial Research and Technology Development Centre before going on to join the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and thereafter the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNCEF). At UNDP where he worked for 12 years consecutively, Munday designed and managed multi-million-dollar programmes in various fields including democratic governance, decentralized governance, human rights, access to justice, integrated rural development, small enterprise development and employment creation, agriculture and food security, sustainable livelihood and forestry and natural resources management. On the internation scene Munday has worked with the Field Results Group in the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Headquarters in New York where he was responsible for developing policies, procedures, simple tools and guidance and providing timely tailored support to regional and country office staff to strengthen UNICEF’s accountability for donor resources and in delivering results for children worldwide, with special focus on cash transfers to and formalization of partnerships with implementing partner organizations. His work experienced has taken him to various countries outside Malawi including the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Iran, Moldova, Morocco, Mozambique, Senegal, Sudan, Tanzania, The Gambia, the USA, Yemen and Zambia.
Munday is a holder of a Master of Science in Agricultural Engineering and a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture. He has over 35 years’ experience in undertaking research and consultancies for government and reputable national and international organizations. His research and consultancy work includes baseline studies, mid-term and endline evaluations and thematic and policy development studies. Munday is an innovative self-starter, results-oriented team leader and player who is always willing to take on challenges and additional responsibilities.
Research Fellow
Dorothy Chisusu-Mulewa
Dorothy Chisusu is an Agricultural Economist with six years of progressive experience in policy development and communication, research, project implementation, and monitoring and evaluation across the agriculture, nutrition, and environmental sustainability sectors. Her work focuses on enhancing food systems, sustainable resource use, and inclusive agricultural development in sub-Saharan Africa.
Currently, Dorothy serves as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at LUANAR and a Graduate Research Fellow at IITA, where she continues to contribute to agricultural diversification research and assist undergraduate students with academic research. Prior to these experiences, Dorothy served as a Research Analyst at Michigan State University in collaboration with Malawi's Ministry of Agriculture.
She has a solid academic foundation, is currently pursuing a Doctor of Philosophy in Resource Economics at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), Malawi. Her doctoral research investigates the role of legumes in greenhouse gas sequestration and their associated economic benefits in Malawi, supported by grants from the World Bank-funded Africa Center of Excellence in Agricultural Policy Analysis (ACE II AF-APA) and the European Union through the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) and the University of Galway. Dorothy holds a Master of Science in Agricultural and Applied Economics with a specialization in Environmental Policy and Resource Economics, attained through a collaborative program between LUANAR and the University of Pretoria.