What Exactly is CCODE?

The Centre for Community Organisation and Development (CCODE) is a Malawian non profit organization which was founded in 2003. CCODE was established mainly to enhance the quality of livelihood of the poor in Malawi by empowering them to change their lives. Among other things the organisation provides loan fund for the construction of low cost houses, train community groups in various skills, and provide financial capital for the establishment of small businesses. The organisation holds the belief that purposeful action is needed to promote the inclusion of the poor in development.


CCODE works in alliance with the Malawi Homeless People’s Federation (Federation), which is a grassroots network of poor communities involved in community savings program. The federation works to train poor communities, in such fields as the importance of daily community savings, income generation, housing, and general community development. Currently the Federation has 50,000 members, 80 percent being women. CCODE provides technical support to the Federation in all its programmes. CCODE, further works to train communities in skills development to enable them utilize the skills in establishing small businesses and projects that will act as income generating activities. These skills training targets the poor communities and poor people as CCODE upholds the notion that relevant and sustainable solutions are achieved if the poor are involved in decision making roles, at all levels.


When communities decide to pursue a development initiative, CCODE provides guidance, capacity building and technical assistance and facilitates access to resources. This approach reflects CCODE’s belief that the poor should be incorporated into all aspects of development, ranging from identifying and prioritizing problems to developing and implementing the actual solutions. CCODE advocates for pro poor polices and works to facilitate dialogue between poor communities and stakeholders that will ultimately lead to the development and implementation of relevant and sustainable solutions that meet challenges facing the poor. Thus, the organisation further ensures that an effective link is created between the poor communities and relevant authorities, consequently establishing a channel for dialogue between the two.

Mission Statement

To be a leading institution in empowering organizations of the poor in Malawi to be socio-economically self-reliant through capacity building initiatives

Vision Statement

To empower poor communities to become materially and intellectually self-reliant.

CCODE and Women empowerment

Women are given a greater part in the work of CCODE as well as the federation because the alliance believes that women are the central point of any development process. On the other hand, the alliance realises that issues dealing with poverty affects women more than men and it is only when these women are empowered that they can achieve independency in all aspects. The CCODE – Federation alliance believes that the first step towards the empowerment of women involves engaging them in key decision making roles.

What strategies do we use?

When working with the Federation, CCODE initiate the following three main strategies;


Engage: in this approach CCODE assists the Federation to mobilize people living in poor communities, facilitate them to become actively engaged in development activities and work together to prioritize and effect change. Community savings and loans groups constitute the foundation for their involvement.


Empower: CCODE provides training and expertise to poor communities and establish legitimate forums for these communities to engage in dialogue with their local authorities. In addition, CCODE facilitates community to community learning through exchange visits that allow communities to share views and explore new areas of knowledge.


Support: the organisation offers the necessary resources and technical support to implement solutions including among others: providing capital for homes, home improvement projects, sanitation facilities and small businesses; designing and planning services and sanitation facilities for low income housing communities;introducing new technologies in the area of water, sanitation and renewable energy and identifying income generating opportunities as well as providing skills-based training to poor communities.

What goals do we aim to achieve?

· To support Community Based Organisations (CBOs) by facilitating linkages with local authorities and lobbying for their rights.

· To ensure that the poor communities have access to basic resources through microcredit loans, enabling them to support the initiatives they are pursuing.

· To advocate for the provision of what communities perceive as their most essential requirements. These requirements include adequate and convenient water supply, secure shelter and other basic amenities (all within the mandate of what the state can resolve).

· To ensure that women have an equal right to participate in the decision-making processes.

· To establish participatory research on the poor and their problems and use the information collected as a basis for dialogue, planning, and action.