The donation follows a study that IPOR, together with Ohio State University, Vanderbilt University and the International Food Research Institute (IFPRI) conducted in the communities around the Zomba and Malosa forest reserves in July and August 2022 to study the effects of women groups on deliberations around environmental governance.

The project was entitled: Gender, Deliberation, and Natural Resource Governance: Experimental Evidence from Malawi. The tree seedling donation is a long tradition by IPOR as a Corporate Citizen of Zomba to donate to worthwhile causes.