IT is just over 8820 miles from Edinburgh to Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi, where Scottish taxpayers' money is changing the lives of thousands of women and children in the landlocked, poverty-stricken country.

Elizabeth Phiri, 36, a mother of four, is one such woman. She worked long, back-breaking hours in the fields to feed her family, while her husband drank away what little money they had, leaving her to struggle to keep a roof over their heads.

For years, she and her family survived on £14 a month. Now she's turned her life around thanks to an Oxfam-run Village Farmers Forum (VVF).

At the forum, which brings labourers in the area together to decide how best to run the local economy, Phiri and the other women in her village, Msambo, convinced their husbands to share both the workload and the money.

She and her family increased their earnings to around £47 a month – an achievement Oxfam hopes will be echoed throughout Malawi thanks to new funding from the Scottish Government.

The aid package underlines the historic ties between the two countries. Explorer and missionary David Livingtone reached Lake Malawi in 1859, and the country's second-largest city is named Blantyre after his birthplace.

The VVF scheme is just one of the 19 Scottish-run projects in Malawi which together get donations worth more than £5.6 million, one of Holyrood's biggest overseas aid packages.

A large part of the funding, which coincides with the appointment of Malawi's first female Ppresident, Joyce Banda – only the second woman to lead a country in Africa – is aimed at empowering women like Phiri so they can better support their families and communities.

Phiri joined Msambo Village Farmers' Forum and during the meetings, shared her problems with the others there.

Among them was seeing their husbands spending most of their time in drinking dens, waiting for the harvest to sell the produce.

"They sometimes even spend their income on other women," says Phiri, a practise which fuels the spread of HIV.

But after lengthy debates and discussion on the division of labour within their households, Phiri's husband and other male farmers began to realise the impact of their behaviour on their families, and vowed to change.

She added: "We now share responsibilities in farming activities and together we make collective decisions on what to do."

Oxfam Scotland will receive £382,238 for the project over three years and it is hoped more than 15,000 female-headed households will be helped towards improved income and security as a result.

John Makina, country director for Oxfam in Malawi, said: "This project will bring about major changes in the lives of the vulnerable people in Malawi, in particular women who are largely marginalised in the communities."

Scottish External Affairs secretary Fiona Hyslop has confirmed that four other projects aimed at encouraging women into politics and health programmes will also get funding from the Scottish Government's international development fund.

Hyslop said: "Women often suffer the most from the effects of poverty and I am pleased that five of these projects will specifically help women and girls – saving lives, helping women to become more active in their communities and empowering them to take up opportunities in business and politics.

"The recent appointment of Joyce Banda as Malawi's first female president is testament to the fact that women in Africa are making progress socially, economically and politically.

"I am confident these projects will help to continue that progress.

"Scottish-based organisations have been working for many years to improve the lives of people in Malawi and this round of funding from the Scottish Government'sinternational development fund will enable that work to continue."

One of the schemes, the Scotland Malawi Anaesthesia Project, which is supported by the University of Dundee, will provide training for healthcare workers to cut the number of women dying in childbirth.

Malawi has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world and Dr Catriona Connolly, director of the project, said the £241,681 awarded was a "huge opportunity" to tackle the problem.

She said: "We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded a grant to take the award-winning Practical Obstetric Multi-Professional Training (Prompt) course to the three regions of highest mortality in Malawi."

The Active Learning Centre, run by the Women's Legal Resource Centre, has also received £179,455 to encourage more women into politics.

It hopes to build a network of 2000 women who can become candidates in the 2014 local government and parliamentary elections.

Maggie Banda, chief executive of the centre, said: "All the evidence shows that gender equality is central to sustainable development."

Other women's projects set to benefit include the Ntcheu Integrated Maternal Health Project, run by the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) Scotland, and Aiming Higher in Malawi Schools, which is run by North Lanarkshire Council.