Broken Bridges: Gaps in Civil Society Participation in the Transition to the Second Malawi PRSP
Source: Malawi Economic Justice Network
This report assesses participation of Malawian Civil Society in the development of the Malawian Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS)
The report finds that the MGDS is a product of relatively lower levels of consultative and participatory processes, when compared with the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy (MPRS). While the MPRS and the Vision 2020 incorporated views and inputs from communities, the MGDS incorporated views of a smaller set of stakeholders. Civil society participation took place in the processes after key documents were already developed. One such key document was the Malawi Economic Growth Strategy (MEGS).
The MGDS has built on the MEGS. The MEGS emphasized the need to create a conducive environment for private sector investment to stimulate economic growth. Government conducted consultations with private sector only in the development of the MEGS. The MGDS also incorporates lessons learnt from the implementation of the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy (MPRS).
However, while the civil society actively participated in the MPRS annual reviews, the development of the MGDS was on average far ahead of the completion of the MPRS comprehensive review report and this raised the concern of time mismatches which was potentially undermining participation of the civil society. The MGDS has also been aligned with existing key sectoral strategies and policies from both private and public stakeholder institutions.
Government will spearhead the implementation of the MGDS. However, all stakeholders have varying responsibilities in the implementation process to ensure the attainment of the set goals. The civil society has established itself as one of the key players in monitoring implementation of national poverty policies and government budgets.
While the role of civil society in the implementation of the MGDS is appreciated, lack of adequate access to public information continues to hinder civil society efforts to meaningfully generate credible evidence for influencing policy dialogue. In addition, civil societies’ own inherent capacity weaknesses continue to slow down efforts for promoting pro-poor policy processes and content. These are also gaps and broken bridges that need urgent mending for civil society to become an effective vehicle for transforming public policy for poverty reduction.
Click here to read the full report