Major challenges

DFID: Working to reduce poverty in Malawi

Governance | Health | HIV/AIDS | Education | Agriculture | Trade/growth 

DFID is Malawi’s largest donor with a $120 million programme in 09/10 supporting the government of Malawi’s Growth and Development Strategy.

DFID’s Country Assistance Plan focuses on three areas: good governance, growth and resilience including agriculture; and human development (including basic services like health, HIV/AIDS and education).

Around one-third of our programme is provided as general budget support to support the overall priorities in the government’s budget.

The World Bank, European Union, Norway and the African Development Bank also provide this kind of budget support to Malawi.

Governance

Poor governance is a cause of poverty.

People suffer when governments do not allow participation in political life, provide access to justice, deliver adequate public services or control corruption.

After just 15 years of multi-party democracy, governance in Malawi is still weak but continues to improve.

In February 2006, Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) secured the first-ever conviction of a government minister on corruption charges.

In February 2008, the President of Malawi launched a nationwide Anti-Corruption Strategy.

Working with the government, other development partners, civil society, the media and the British High Commission, DFID is helping to deepen democracy in Malawi.

For example, DFID has:

• Provided substantial support ($7.2m) to help the Malawi Electoral Commission to ensure well-managed elections in May 2009 (Malawi’s 4th democratic elections). These returned President Bingu wa Mutharika for his second and final 5 year term and his Democratic Progressive Party with a two-thirds majority in Parliament and an increase of women MPs from 14% in 2004 to 21% in 2009 (now 41).
• Helped to strengthen Malawi’s Parliament, through a new Strategic Plan and $800,000 (£0.5m) funding. DFID is also helping to strengthen other institutions that are critical for effective democracy and accountability in Malawi, including the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the National Audit Office.
• Since 2007 we have helped 3.1 million to access justice, by strengthening traditional structures that mediate disputes at the community level as well as training 51 lay magistrates and providing legal assistance to poor people in prisons.
  

Health

In 2004, DFID and other donors backed the government of Malawi to launch a huge increase in the number of doctors and nurses, alongside investments in better health facilities.

DFID’s commitment is $174 million over six years. DFID’s general budget support has also helped the government to increase the amount of resources it provides for health and HIV.

Whilst health care in Malawi is still not as good as it needs to be, these combined efforts have helped to achieve impressive results since 2004, including:

• The recruitment and training of over 1,000 doctors and nurses since 2004. All nurses now have mid-wife training, which is important to help ensure mothers can give birth safely. We have helped 70,000 more women a year give birth in hospitals or health centres and reduced those dying in childbirth by up to 1,000 a year.
• Malawi’s Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) has reduced by 28% since 2000 – compared to an average fall of only 0-2% for other Sub-Saharan African countries. Proportion of sites offering Basic Emergency Obstetric Care increased from 2% to 56%.
• A huge reduction in the number of babies and young children dying before their 5th birthday – at least 15,000 fewer children die per year compared to 2004. Malawi is on track to achieve MDG 4. 
   

HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS is a significant threat to Malawi’s development.

Around 930,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in Malawi and knowledge about the disease is low.

There are 90,000 new infections every year and due to HIV/AIDS, Malawi has approximately 84,000 new orphans every year.

To help government tackle this, DFID and some other donors are providing $72m into a ‘pool’ to support the work of the National AIDS Commission (US$7.2 million from DFID).

The Global Fund, to which DFID also contributes, has committed US$262 million.

Because of these combined efforts, Malawi has been able to achieve the following results:

• Nearly two-thirds of those who need them are now accessing anti-retroviral treatment (170,000) from almost no one in 2004. Half of those on ARVs are women. Average adherence rates are a remarkable 90% for clients surviving the dangerous first 3 months.
  The percentage of the population infected with HIV has stabilised at 12%, down from 14%.
• A dramatic increase in the number of people tested for HIV from about 150,000 in 2002 to over 1.7 million in 2008.
  

Education

On current trends, Malawi will not achieve the two education Millennium Development Goals - universal primary education and equal numbers of girls and boys in schools by 2015.

Although primary education is free, there are more than 600,000 children aged 6-13 not in school.

Fewer girls than boys finish primary school and even fewer go on to secondary school. The average class size is 78 pupils, and it’s not unusual to see classes of 200.

DFID Malawi is developing a major new programme with government and other development partners to back education reform and increased investment over the next 10 years, to get Malawi back on track.

This will build on successful pilots, including the Direct Support to Schools initiative that provides grants straight to schools to tackle the problems they and their communities identify as most urgent.

These funds have been used in many different ways – from repairing roofs or toilet blocks, to recruiting school leavers from the local community who are then trained to be teachers.

Under its previous Education Programme in Malawi, DFID has provided:

• 4200 classrooms since 1996, benefiting 430,000 children. DFID has also built 400 houses for teachers and 300 School Administration blocks since 2003.
• 18 million textbooks since 2006, benefiting 2.5 million children, as part of a new national curriculum in primary schools.
• DFID also built 315 Teacher Development Centres, which have been used to train every teacher in Malawi on the new curriculum. These centres are also used in many areas as meeting halls for the local community.

Agriculture

DFID supports the government of Malawi’s innovative Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) started in 2006, which provides affordable seeds and fertiliser to around 1.5m households every year.

DFID has committed US$32 (£20) million over four years (2007-11) and our funds focus on the most effective parts of this like good quality seeds, logistics support to run the programme, and weather insurance to help protect the country against the risk of drought.

On the back of good rains and efficient implementation of the FISP programme, Malawi has produced more food than it needs for four years running – compared to 5 million on food aid the year before.

Independent evaluations funded by DFID confirm the very positive impact that this programme has had on the country’s maize harvest.

Since 2006, over 1 million people were lifted out of poverty on the back of good harvests.

Trade and growth

DFID’s support to the National Budget of US$35 million per year since 2004 has helped the Malawi government improve economic stability.

This, in turn, has created an environment for growth and investment in poverty reduction.

The economy has grown by over 7% since 2006, after 25 years of stagnation, growing by a record 9.7% in 2008.

Malawi’s international debts were cancelled in 2006 through the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative that the UK helped to finance – releasing extra resources for poverty reduction.