Policy paper

UK–Malawi development partnership summary, July 2023

Published 17 July 2023

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Introduction

The Strategy for International Development (IDS) places development at the heart of the UK’s foreign policy. It sets out a new approach to development, anchored in patient, long-term partnerships tailored to the needs of the countries we work with, built on mutual accountability and transparency. This approach goes beyond aid and brings the combined power of the UK’s global economic, scientific, security and diplomatic strengths to our development partnerships. Our 4 priorities are to deliver honest, reliable investment, provide women and girls with the freedom they need to succeed, step up our life-saving humanitarian work, and take forward our work on climate change, nature, and global health. The Integrated Review Refresh (IR23) reiterates that sustainable development is central to UK foreign policy and sets out how the UK will go further and faster on development to reduce poverty and reinvigorate progress towards the SDGs. This Country Development Partnership Summary details how the IDS and IR23 will be put into practice with Malawi.

Country context

Malawi and the UK have a strong relationship, including a deep historical bond with Scotland. This relationship is based on mutual respect and solid partnerships, including on international development, people to people links, defence collaboration, and shared democratic values.

The Malawi Government has set out a bold and ambitious Vision 2063 [footnote 1], with the primary aim of becoming ‘an inclusively wealthy and self-reliant industrialised upper middle-income country’ by that date. Despite long-term peace and relative political stability, Malawi is the eleventh poorest country in the world [footnote 2]. Malawi is also highly vulnerable to climate change [footnote 3] and cyclical extreme weather events. Significant challenges are faced by women and girls, with high levels of maternal mortality[footnote 4] and youth pregnancies [footnote 5], and low access to education in later years [footnote 6].

Malawi’s macroeconomic outlook is challenging, with debt distress, steep fiscal and current account deficits, significant inflation, low foreign exchange reserves and a high level of aid dependency [footnote 7]. Corruption presents a serious threat to public service delivery. The business enabling environment remains difficult, making it hard to attract new investment. The private sector is largely informal, with a few big firms dominating most sectors and the majority of export earnings coming from just 3 sectors: tobacco, tea, and sugar [footnote 8]. Energy supply is low and unreliable [footnote 9].

Why and how: the UK’s development offer

The UK’s mission in Malawi is to be a supportive and reliable partner in promoting inclusive, stable economic growth, climate-smart resilience, robust and democratic institutions, and high-quality services that protect the rights of the poorest.

To achieve our mission statement, the UK will draw on the full range of its resources including UK expertise from across His Majesty’s Government, local and central programming, strong advisory capability, convening power, leveraging international finance, and influencing the wider multilateral system. To drive sustainable change, we will identify catalytic opportunities for reform. We will also work in strong partnership with others, including the Malawi Government, taking calculated risks, and driving continuous improvement.

The UK will focus upon 3 objectives:

1. Tackle the climate emergency by building the resilience of Malawians and responding to climate shocks, so that a perpetual state of emergency is avoided. This includes a focus on protecting the most vulnerable and accelerating Malawi’s transition to a more climate-resilient, low carbon, and environmentally sustainable economy on the path to net zero by 2050.

Success stories in the last 2 years:

The UK supported the reduction of deforestation, through the Modern Cooking programme, where the use of LPG gas for cooking has doubled across four cities, and there has been a tenfold increase in volumes of legal charcoal sales.

The UK has supported the unblocking of major UK investments in Malawi’s renewable energy to deliver climate-smart energy and support Malawi’s economic development.

To respond to increased food insecurity from climate related shocks, the UK drove a major systemic shift from an in-kind to a cash-based crisis response for lean season support, as well as reaching 1.1 million people with resilience-building support annually.

In response to Cyclone Freddy, the UK deployed a 27-person team of UK Search & Rescue experts and specialist equipment which helped save 357 lives.

2. Support the Malawi Government to deliver inclusive economic growth by building a Malawian economy that works for everyone. This will include leveraging UK expertise on tackling unsustainable debt, promoting free trade, improving the business enabling environment for investors and exporters, and leveraging UK institutions – such as British International Investment – to provide reliable, sustainable investment.

Success stories in the last 2 years:

On the macroeconomic front, the UK has worked closely with the Malawi Government, the IMF and World Bank in securing $88.3 million of initial IMF funding to help Malawi reduce its debt burden.

To support the facilitation of trade, the UK helped to reduce the Mchinji border processing time for critical goods during the COVID-19 crisis from 3 days to 3 hours.

The UK supported the Malawi Government and private sector to develop and implement a new seed certification system across the maize and legume markets to improve yield quality. To date this has delivered an increased income of an estimated £7.2 million for farmers.

3. Support the Malawi Government to drive reform to achieve robust public institutions, the delivery of high-quality public services to build Malawi’s human capital, and an active civil society. This work will tackle the root causes of poverty through a focus on the fight against corruption, protecting free speech, and safeguarding independent institutions. Government service delivery is being supported at national and district level, delivering better health and education outcomes, prioritising women and girls, and harnessing Malawi’s demographic transition.

Success stories in the last 2 years:

The UK supported the establishment of an Asset Forfeiture framework, facilitating the first ever non-conviction-based preservation order worth over MWK 3 billion (GBP 2.5 million), and provided technical assistance to strategic law enforcement agencies to increase the likelihood of convictions and asset recovery.

The UK has continued to support Women and Girls, having developed innovative ways to reach the youth with maternal, sexual and reproductive health services, reaching over 398,000 in 2022.

The UK also advanced a challenging reform to the national maths curriculum, which has been rolled out to 1,200 schools, to improve the quality of learning and help girls succeed in school.

Who we work with

The Malawi Government is the UK’s key partner, with strong relationships at national and district level. These relationships enable Malawi and the UK to have constructive and frank conversations on key issues.

The UK works and engages with a wide range of local, national, and international partners, such as other governments, international organisations, Civil Society Organisations, and the private sector, including UK businesses. The UK also works closely with both the World Bank, the largest development partner in Malawi, and the International Monetary Fund to push forward key reforms, particularly in the macroeconomic space.

The UK works closely with the UN, which is the largest operational partner, particularly in democratic governance, public health crises and humanitarian responses, where the UN leads coordination. The Global Fund and GAVI alliance provide significant funding in Malawi, and the UK is actively engaged in decisional meetings in country.

Key programmes

In tackling the 3 key objectives outlined above, the UK will use a range of resources, creatively leveraging tools and funding, providing technical expertise, and thought leadership, as well as developing impactful programmes, funded through the UK’s Official Development Assistance, to deliver a patient, long-term partnership with Malawi.

Building Resilience and Adapting to Climate Change in Malawi (BRACC)

On tackling climate change, our Building Resilience and Adapting to Climate Change in Malawi (BRACC) programme aims to strengthen the resilience of poor households to withstand weather and climate-related shocks and stresses. This will in turn reduce the impact of the annual cycle of humanitarian crises that blights people’s lives, harms poverty reduction efforts, and swallows up resources.

Malawi Trade and Investment Programme (MTIP)

On promoting inclusive economic growth, our Malawi Trade and Investment Programme (MTIP) aims to stimulate a step change in Malawi’s economic growth by promoting higher value export sectors, cutting time and costs of trade and logistics, and raising international and domestic investment in new exports. Underpinning this is a focused effort to improve the business enabling environment.

Transparency and Accountability (TRACTION)

On supporting the Malawi Government to drive reform and build robust institutions, our Transparency and Accountability (TRACTION) programme aims to take an innovative issues-based approach to identify and address blockages in the delivery of public goods, including services at local and national levels and the business environment. TRACTION will also provide support to the Malawi Electoral Commissions preparations for the 2025 elections.

Tackling Serious and Organised Corruption in Malawi (TSOC)

Our Tackling Serious and Organised Corruption in Malawi (TSOC) programme aims to enhance technical capacity and coordination of key Malawian law enforcement agencies including the Anti-Corruption Bureau, Director of Public Prosecutions, Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) and Malawi Police Service. TSOC also supports collective action by non-state actors, including the media, in the fight against serious and organised corruption.

Strengthening Malawi’s Education System (SMES)

On building Malawi’s human capital, our Strengthening Malawi’s Education System (SMES) programme aims to improve the quality of education service delivery in Malawi so that more children successfully progress through and complete primary school, with measurable improvements in learning outcomes. The programme also focuses on supporting girls’ education to ensure that they build the foundational skills to fulfil their potential and contribute towards national development.

Umoyo Wathu Health System Strengthening programme

Our Umoyo Wathu Health System Strengthening programme aims to reduce rates and inequalities in maternal and child deaths, by strengthening the quality and coverage of a package of essential health and family planning services. The programme will increase the provision of cost-effective, primary healthcare services focusing on women and girls.

Further to local programming, central programming led from the UK Headquarters and regionally also supports our country plan objectives. This covers a range of key sectors such as tackling deadly diseases, women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, supporting survivors of sexual harassment, empowering adolescent and marginalised girls through education, and commercial agricultural support for small holders and agribusiness.

HM Government activities also extend into other areas, including:

  • the Department for Health and Social Care funding health research in Malawi, through both the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and through the Fleming Fund which focuses on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). A substantial proportion goes to the Malawi Liverpool Wellcome Trust (MLW) Research Facility in Blantyre, with the FCDO sitting on the Global Fleming Fund board to ensure strategic alignment with our wider health policy and programmatic work

  • the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs fund several programmes active in Malawi, which mostly focus on conservation, biodiversity protection and tackling illegal wildlife trade

  • the Ministry of Defence, through the British Peace Support Team, train Malawian troops for peacekeeping in Democratic Republic of Congo

  • the Scottish Government undertake development activity in Malawi across a range of sectors

Financial information

Initial allocations have been set internally to deliver the priorities set out in the International Development Strategy (May 2022) and the Integrated Review Refresh 2023, based on the FCDO’s Spending Review 2021 settlement.

The department’s spending plans for the period 2022 to 2023 to 2024 to 2025 have been revisited to ensure HM Government continues to spend around 0.5% of Gross National Income (GNI) on ODA. This was in the context of the significant and unexpected costs incurred to support the people of Ukraine and Afghanistan escape oppression and conflict and find refuge in the UK, and others seeking asylum. The Government provided additional resources of £1 billion in 2022 to 2023 and £1.5 billion in 2023 to 2024 to help meet these unanticipated costs. The Government remains committed to returning ODA spending to 0.7% of GNI when the fiscal situation allows, in line with the approach confirmed by the House of Commons in July 2021.

The country development partnership summaries include the breakdown of programme budgets allocated to individual countries for 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. These allocations are indicative and subject to revision as, by its nature, the department’s work is dynamic. Programme allocations are continually reviewed to respond to changing global needs, including humanitarian crises, fluctuations in GNI and other ODA allocation decisions.

It should be noted that these figures do not reflect the full range of UK ODA spending in these individual countries as they do not include spend delivered via core contributions to multilateral organisations, or regional programmes delivered by the FCDO’s central departments. Other UK Government departments also spend a large amount of ODA overseas. Details of ODA spent by other UK government departments can be found in their Annual Report and Accounts and the Statistics for International Development.

The UK Government has had to reprioritise its Official Development Assistance (ODA) spend in the context of the significant and unanticipated international turmoil, including the war in Ukraine. This has meant a constrained UK ODA budget in Malawi for Financial Year (FY) 2023 to 2024. The significant increase in the indicative ODA budget for FY 2024 to 2025 reflects the importance of the UK partnership with Malawi and our commitment to support the poorest and most vulnerable.

Allocated ODA budget for financial year 2023 to 2024 Indicative ODA budget for financial year 2024 to 2025
£16,340,000 £51,000,000

In 2022 to 2023, 71% of programmes were marked as being principally or significantly focused on promoting gender equality and 71% were marked as being focused on disability inclusion.

Figure 1. 2023 to 2024 Bilateral ODA Budget by Thematic Area: Women and Girls, £7.4 million; Humanitarian Preparedness and Response, £5.5 million; Global Health, £1.3 million; Investment and Growth, £1 million; Trade and Supply Chains, £1 million; Governance and Institutions Critical to Broader Development, £0.2 million.

Supporting information sources

  1. Malawi Vision 2063: An Inclusively Wealthy and Self-reliant Nation; United Nations in Malawi ↩

  2. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=MW, GDP per capita (constant 2017 US$) ↩

  3. Malawi is the fifth most affected country in terms of extreme weather events according to the 2021 Global Climate Risk Index. ↩

  4. Maternal mortality ratio (modelled estimate, per 100,000 live births) - Malawi; Data (worldbank.org) ↩

  5. Adolescent fertility rate (births per 1,000 women ages 15-19) - Malawi; Data (worldbank.org) ↩

  6. Kadzamira and Zubairi analysis of National Data 2016, Who benefits from abolishing secondary school fees in Malawi, and what are the costs? - World Education Blog (world-education-blog.org) ↩

  7. OECD DAC data ↩

  8. N Comrade Mirror Statistics Data, accessed through World Bank WITS ↩

  9. Government of Malawi Ministry of Energy, Digest of Malawi Energy Statistics 2023 (PDF, 1.36MB) ↩

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