CAMFED Malawi Climate Education Terms of Reference
Qualitative Needs Assessment
Time: September to December 2026
Introduction
Malawi is experiencing the severe effects of climate change, manifested as more unpredictable and extreme weather. Food insecurity and extreme weather events threaten lives and livelihoods and also education access, particularly for girls. Low yields leading to resource scarcity can often lead to girls’ exclusion from school. Malnutrition and hunger impact learners’ ability to focus in school. These challenges can create a vicious cycle of negative impact, particularly for women and girls. The climate crisis threatens all our gains for education and gender equity. Now more than ever, it is important to support children – both girls and boys – to thrive in a world experiencing the effects of climate change. CAMFED’s approach to Climate Education leverages the success of our ‘My Better World’ life skills program through a cross-cutting (non subject-specific) approach to helping young people build the knowledge and life skills they need for climate resilience and age-appropriate climate leadership.
CAMFED
The Campaign for Female Education, CAMFED, is an international non-profit organisation established in 1993 with a mission to multiply girls’ access to education, and to accelerate the benefits to individuals, their families, and communities in Africa. CAMFED works to tackle poverty and inequality by supporting girls to go to school and succeed, and to empower young women to become leaders of change. CAMFED invests in girls and women in the poorest rural communities in rural Africa, where girls face acute disadvantages, but where their empowerment transforms communities. CAMFED was founded simultaneously in Zimbabwe and the UK in 1993, and currently operates in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and Zambia with offices in each country as well as in the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia.
Context
CAMFED in collaboration with young people, schools and Ministries of Education has developed the My Better World resources for girls and boys in schools across rural Africa. These are delivered by young women (members of the CAMFED Association) volunteering as Learner Guides or Learner Mentors in their local schools. The support and active engagement of Ministries of Education have been critical for ensuring we can develop and roll out this programme, with support and space in the school timetable for Learner Guides to deliver it. We celebrate the positive impact of CAMFED’s education support in terms of helping children to stay in school, to improve their academic self-esteem and to improve their life skills. The My Better World curriculum supports young people to develop vital skills including self-awareness, decision-making, teamworking and problem-solving. These are all also, of course, vital skills for climate resilience and livelihoods. We have also extended the life skills approach of My Better World in Zimbabwe and Zambia to include climate-smart skills for young people, supporting them to thrive in a climate impacted world.
Climate Education
Building on these foundations, we propose to work collaboratively with young people and the Malawi Institute of Education, as well as other government agencies as appropriate, to develop resources for climate education in schools, that complement the existing My Better World content and that complement elements of the formal Malawian curriculum that already address climate change. We anticipate that the content will be delivered by Learner Guides, with support from Agriculture Guides where appropriate. This new content will be practical and interactive – hands-on wherever possible.
CAMFED’s Climate Education Objectives
CAMFED’s Climate Education approach is cross-cutting i.e. non-subject specific and designed to complement the formal curriculum. It focuses on life skills to enable young people to be “climate-smart” and has four high level learning objectives:
- Develop children’s understanding of climate change, complementing what they learn in school lessons and helping them to distinguish myths and facts.
- Help young people to be safer without causing anxiety by raising awareness of reliable sources of information and ways to be safe when climate emergencies occur.
- Empower young people to take climate action in their families and communities in age-appropriate ways
- Enable young people to embed climate resilience across lives and livelihoods, including knowledge and life skills that help prepare them for sustainable livelihoods including green jobs.
Purpose of the Qualitative Needs Assessment
The purpose of the Needs Assessment is to inform the development of the CAMFED Malawi climate education life skills resource so that it will equip young people with vital skills to thrive in a climate-impacted world; complementing climate education delivered through the formal curriculum. It will feature consultations with children, young people and teachers in a number of rural communities.
More specifically the consultations with children, young women and teachers will help us to answer the following questions :
- What are the priority cross-cutting (ie non subject-specific) climate education needs for children in Malawian secondary schools for each of the following?
- For understanding climate change
- For understanding how it affects them and their communities
- For protection, responding to emergencies, knowing how to access accurate information and staying safe
- For improving vital skills for rewarding lives and sustainable livelihoods including critical thinking, problem-solving, and team-working
- For instilling an equitable approach that centres the theme of climate justice
- For building climate-smart livelihoods
- For taking climate action and feeling empowered and positive
- For supporting good mental health
- For understanding if girls and boys have different priorities and learning needs?
- What is the most effective way to deliver climate education in rural Malawian schools?
- Role of female mentors (volunteers) – Learner Guides and Agricultural Guides
- Age-relevant content
- Teacher engagement – role of Teacher Mentors / other teachers
- Practical, hands-on delivery of content
- Focus on “powers” in line with CAMFED’s pedagogy through My Better World
- What are the enablers of a system approach and who are our collaborators?
- Define mechanisms for effective engagement from the start with Malawi Institute of Education (MIE) and other curriculum development partners.
- Agree on information and metrics to be captured to endorse and evaluate the effectiveness of CAMFED’s climate curriculum with a view to what will be required for further scale.
The Needs Assessment will include a mapping of the current Climate Smart education initiatives in Malawi such as UNESCO Climate Smart Education Systems Initiative in Malawi Greening the curriculum: Integrating climate change education into Malawi’s national curriculum.
Needs Assessment Objectives
The objectives of the Needs Assessment will be to –
- Understand how climate change is affecting rural communities and learners in Malawi.
- Gather perspectives from children, young people, and teachers on climate change and climate education.
- Identify gaps in existing climate education for young people (drawing on publicly available analysis) and considering the core objectives outlined under Section 5 above
- Determine the knowledge and skills learners need to acquire to become Climate Champions.Provide recommendations for strengthening the Climate Education agenda in Malawi.
- Identify priorities for climate education life skills in Malawi
- Confirm fun, uplifting and engaging ways in which children and their teachers and peer mentors wish to engage with climate education and develop life skills
Please read the full requirements before applying
Proposals and the budget for this research must be sent by the 14th of August 2026 to [email protected] with the title. Please contact CAMFED on [email protected] for any queries in relation to this research up to the 12th of August 2026 Please note: Only full proposal submissions as outlined in sections 12 & 13 above will be considered.