MDG ACCELERATION FRAMEWORK ACTION PLAN FOR GENDER … · MDG Acceleration Framework Action Plan for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in Malawi ©2013 This document is a formal

MDG ACCELERATION FRAMEWORK ACTION PLAN FOR GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN MALAWI

A Background paper

MDG ACCELERATION FRAMEWORK ACTION PLAN FOR GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN EMPOWERMENT IN MALAWI

A Background paper

MDG Acceleration Framework Action Plan for Gender Equality and Women Empowerment in Malawi ©2013

This document is a formal publication of the United Nations Syestem in Malawi. All rights are reserved. The document may however be freely reviewed, quoted, reproduced or translated, in part or in full, provided the source is acknowledged.

For further information, please contact:Office of UN Resident CoordinatorUnited Nations System in Malawi, P.O. Box 30135Lilongwe 3Malawi

Tel: 265 1 773 500Fax: 254 1 773 637Email: [email protected]

5MAF Action Plan background paper |

CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................... 5FIGURES AND TABLES ............................................................................................................. 6ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... 7GLOSSARY .............................................................................................................................. 8

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 101.1 PREAMBLE .......................................................................................................................................... 101.2 BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION ......................................................................................... 101.3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................................................... 111.4 STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT ........................................................................................................ 12

CHAPTER 2: SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONTEXT AND MDG ACHIEVEMENTS............................. 132.1 SOCIO-ECONOMIC FEATURES ...................................................................................................... 132.2 ECONOMIC CONTEXT ..................................................................................................................... 132.3 PERFORMANCE OF SOME GENDER RELATED MDG INDICATORS .................................... 152.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR GENDER BASED INTERVENTIONS ........................................................ 20

CHAPTER 3: KEY POLICIES AND INTERVENTIONS .............................................................. 213.1 POLICY AND LEGISLATION ............................................................................................................ 213.2 FUNDING AND PERFORMANCE .................................................................................................. 233.3 MONITORING AND EVALUATION SYSTEM .............................................................................. 243.4 KEY INTERVENTIONS ...................................................................................................................... 243.5 IMPLIMENTATION FOR GENDER PROGRAMMING ................................................................ 26

CHAPTER 4: GAPS, BOTTLENECKS AND SOLUTIONS ....................................................... 274.1 GAPS ................................................................................................................................................... 274.2 BOTTLENECKS AND SOLUTIONS ............................................................................................... 294.3 SETTING PRIORITIES ...................................................................................................................... 384.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE GENDER ROAD MAP / STRATEGIC PLAN ................................ 38

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................... 40

REFERENCES .......................................................................................................................... 42APPENDIX ON FIGURES ........................................................................................................ 43APPENDIX ON GIRL CHILD CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK.................................................... 45

CONTENTS

6 | MAF Action Plan background paper

FIGURESFigure 1: Girl child multiplier effects ...........................................................................................12Figure 2: Ratio of girls to boys by Primary and Secondary Education ....................................15Figure 3: Share of women in non-agriculture employment ....................................................16Figure 4: Poverty and literacy rates ..............................................................................................17Figure 5: Women literacy rates by district ...................................................................................17Figure 6: Literacy rates .....................................................................................................................18Figure 7: School survival rates by sex...........................................................................................18Figure 8: Violence against women by district .............................................................................19Figure 9: Gender national budget trends .....................................................................................23Figure 10 : Girl survival rates Std 6 to 8........................................................................................43Figure 11: Violence against women by age ................................................................................44

TABLESTable 1: MDG Status at a glance ....................................................................................................... 9Table 2: SADC Indicators on gender ............................................................................................43

FIGURES AND TABLES


This paper was produced through a joint effort by a technical team drawn from various institutions. Thanks go to the Chief Facilitator – Hannock Kumwenda (PhD), and co-facilitators for the effort and valuable time they put in: Cyrus Jeke from Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Welfare; Agness Chimbiri (PhD), Gebrehiwot Kebedew (PhD), and Juana Bhonopha from UNDP. Acknowledgements also go to professionals that provided their valuable input in the whole process: Enock Bonongwe, Masimo Sichinga of MGCSW; Robert Msuku of MEPD, Jafet Nyirongo of Ministry of Education; Jessie Chamwaka of Ministry of Disabilities; Lastone Chikoti of RHU; Chipaso Nkhonjera of Ministry of Agriculture; Brian Ng’oma of Ministry of Labor; Mathews Kalungulu of Ministry of Finance; Madalo Sawati of CRECOM; Ruth Chirwa of FAWEMA; Beatrice Kumwenda of UNFPA; Priscilla Sani-Chimwele of UNDP; Peter Yelesani, Innocent Hauya of MGCSW. Finally, thanks to all the support staff from the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare and UNDP.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


CPR Contraceptive Prevalence RateDHS Demographic Health SurveyGBV Gender based violenceGDP Gross Domestic ProductIHS Integrated Household SurveyMAF MDG Acceleration FrameworkMDG Millennium Development Goal(s)MEPD Ministry of Economic Planning and DevelopmentMGCSW Ministry of Gender, Children, Social WelfareMICS Multiple Indicator Cluster SurveyMMR Maternal Mortality RatioNGOs Non-Governmental OrganisationsNSO National Statistical OfficeORT Other recurrent transactionsRHU Reproductive Health UnitSWAP Sector-Wide ApproachTA Traditional AuthorityUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeWHO World Health Organisation

GLOSSARY


MDG STATUS AT A GLANCE Progress Towards Achieving the Millennium Development Goals

GOAL/TARGET Indicator Baseline

(2000) Recent Status

2015 Target

Feasibility of

achieving the Goal

Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger

Proportion of population living below US$1.00 per person per day (%)

53.9 50.7 27

Unlikely to be met

Poverty Gap Ratio (%) 18.6 18.9 8

Poorest Quintile Share in National Consumption (%) 10 5.5 20

Prevalence of Underweight Children (%) 25.4 30.6 14

Proportion of Population below minimum level of dietary energy consumption (%)

23.6 24.5 11.8

Achieve Universal Primary Education

Net Enrolment in Primary (%) 78 80.2 100 Unlikely to be met Proportion of Pupils Starting Grade1 Reaching Grade 5 (%) 69 73.5 100

Literacy Rate (15-24yrs) (%) 68.1 84 100

Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women

Ratio of Girls to Boys in Primary Education 0.91 1.00 1

Unlikely to be met

Ratio of Girls to Boys in Secondary Education 0.60 0.78 1

Ratio of Literate Women to Men 15 – 24 Years Old 0.82 0.94 1Share of Women in Wage Employment in non-Agriculture Sector (%)

13.1 15 50

Proportion of Seats Held by Women in Parliament (%) 9.3 22 50

Reduce Child Mortality

Likely to

be met

Improve Maternal Health

Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 births) 1120 675 155 Unlikely

to be met Proportion of births attended to by skilled health personnel (%)

55.6 73 100

Combat HIV and AIDS, Malaria and other diseases

Likely to

be met

Ensure Environmental Sustainability

Likely to

be met

Develop Global Partnership for Development

Likely to

be met

Table 1: MDG Status at a glance


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 PREAMBLE

Malawi has embraced the idea that she can achieve many of the 2015 millennium development goal (MDG) targets or bridge the gap substantially by implementing interventions that can accelerate progress on off-track MDGs. She has four goals – MDG 1, 2, 3, and 5 - that are off-track in the portfolio of eight MDGs1. Of these four, Government has decided to focus on interventions that would accelerate the achievements of the lagging MDGs with the girl child as an entry point.

It is the purpose of this paper to provide background information for developing an action plan for the selected priority intervention area, explaining how it reinforces the achievement of the lagging MDGs, what interventions have been done in the past and recently to improve results in this area, and identifying key gaps, bottlenecks, and solutions.

1.2 BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION

Malawi is making positive strides towards the attainment of gender equality, equity and women empowerment. For example, over the last five years the growth of women in Parliament and leadership positions has been more than 30 percent, even though the overall level of women in the same positions is still below the target of 50 percent. Key achievements include the rise of a long-serving female politician to the Presidency; 30.3 percent female cabinet representation; 50.79 percent Central Government Commission membership; 40 percent University of Malawi enrolment, 100 percent scholarship for female medical students; parity in girls and boys enrolment in primary education; parity in literacy rates for the 15-19 year age group; and development and review of legislations with a gender perspective, among others.

The progress recorded so far would not lead to the full achievement of the following MDG targets to ensure that the country achieves gender equality and women empowerment:

• Ratio of girls to boys in secondary education• Ratio of literate women to men 15 – 24 years old• Share of Women in Wage Employment in non-Agriculture Sector (50%)• Proportion of Seats held by Women in Parliament (50%)

According to the most recent MDG Report (2012), Malawi is unlikely to achieve these targets except the ratio of girls to boys in primary school, which currently stands at 1.07. On the contrary, the ratio of girls to boys in secondary education stands at 0.50; share of women in wage employment in non-agriculture sector is at 15 percent; and the proportion of Parliamentary seats held by women is at 22 percent. There are many challenges that hinder real progress in the achievement of the gender-related MDG targets. The major challenges are in three thematic areas: a) policy and legislation; b) social and economic value of gender equality, equity and women empowerment; and c) cultural and religious barriers. Malawi is likely to make progress in these areas only if the root causes of these barriers are addressed and up-rooted. A problem analysis of these hindrances reveals that the girl child is the main victim. If the girl child is not supported, she grows up into motherhood with no appropriate skills and knowledge to bring up her children in line with the modern life.

1 MDG 1 is Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunder; MDG 2 is Achieve universal primary education, MDG 3 is Promote gender equality and empower women , and MDG 5 is Improve maternal health.


Supporting the girl child, by giving her all round life skills, has got many immediate and long term benefits that would contribute to the achievements of all the other lagging MDGs. Arguably the ‘girl child’ is an intervention target that has far reaching multiplier effects on the lagging as well as the non-lagging MDG goals. It has been reasoned that if a country achieves the MDG on gender equality in education, it will be better positioned to progress toward the hunger target in MDG 1 and toward the child and maternal mortality goals (MDG 4 and 5). Educated women and girls are more likely to delay marital commitments and pregnancy, and are in a better position to make informed choices about family planning, nutrition and health. It may also have an impact on MDG 6, as higher educational attainment has been shown to be a protective factor against HIV infection for women, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. These implications can be felt in the short term and in the long term.

Simple investments like improving sanitation in schools and providing uniforms for girls can improve female enrolment and reduce drop-out rates. The impact of interventions for gender equality and women’s empowerment and their indicators should in practice go beyond achievements in education; they should have also impact on health and poverty of women and entire households. Achieving Gender Equality and Women Empowerment therefore facilitates women’s value addition to sustainable economic growth as they do not remain dependents but become productive citizens contributing to productivity in all fields.

1.3 METHODOLOGY

Following the review of progress of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) at the global level at the United Nations (UN) Annual Summit of 2011, the UN introduced a Breakthrough Strategy to accelerate achievements on MDGs that are lagging behind.

The UN Malawi Country Team consequently agreed to support the GoM to accelerate the lagging MDGs in Malawi. A Joint interagency mission was thus fielded to assist the Government of Malawi (GoM) to identify constraints and challenges that hinder the achievement of the lagging MDGs, whilst also focusing on the potential opportunities including entry points to accelerate the progress. The analysis of the socio-cultural and economic situation of women and girls revealed that the girl child is at the centre of the challenges limiting the achievements of the three MDGs. It is against this background that the Aide Memoire which the UN mission developed highlighted the adolescent girl child as the entry point for any interventions aimed at accelerating the achievement of the MDGs. The GoM with support from UNDP and the other UN agencies spearheaded the development of a nationally owned MDG Acceleration Framework (MAF) Action Plan.

The MAF is a tool that provides a systematic way of identifying and prioritizing bottlenecks to MDG progress, and solutions to overcome the bottlenecks. The aim of the MAF is to intensify the efforts and resources on the most critical actions which will enable the country to accelerate progress to MDG Achievement. As such, a focused approach on one MDG or a few indicators is considered important. Key steps in the MAF process are: (i) identification of country-specific interventions and prioritization - based on impact (magnitude, speed, and sustainability of impact and adverse impact) and feasibility; (ii) bottleneck identification for each priority intervention (based on potential impact & feasibility of solving each bottleneck), and prioritization of bottlenecks accordingly selection of feasible solutions to remove/mitigate bottlenecks (that produce rapid acceleration toward target).

The process of preparing the paper followed the same process. A team comprising technocrats from key stakeholder institutions including the civil society reviewed and analyzed available data and literature on MDG 1, 2, 3 and 5. The team conducted both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

In order to produce a situation analysis of identified key indicators for MDG 3 over the millennium period (2000 to 2011), primary and secondary data were reviewed and analyzed to depict the trend in the country’s performance in the achievement of the MDGs. The identified indicators included the following: Ratio of girls to boys in Primary and Secondary education; Share of women in non-wage employment; Poverty vs Literacy rates by region; Women literacy rates by district; Women literacy rates by age; Primary and Secondary school survival rates by sex; Ever experienced physical violence by district; Sexual violence by district; Gender Inequality Index; Labor force participation rate; Adolescent Fertility Rate; Seats in Parliament;


and Contraceptive Prevalence. The trend analysis compared across districts and regions within the country and across the Africa Region was used to inform the impact analysis of the policies and interventions that have been implemented since the year 2000. The analysis was also used to determine the solutions for the identified intervention bottlenecks.

The team identified previous and current interventions, their bottlenecks and possible solutions that would fast-track the achievement of MDG 3 and other lagging MDGs. The identified solutions were prioritized in categories of short-term, medium term and long-term interventions. In conducting this analysis, the team used the illustration below to link the targeted ‘Girl Child’ and the potential impact of proposed interventions on MDG 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6.

Figure 1: Girl child multiplier effectsFigure 1 : Multiplier effects

One limitation though was the coverage and quality of data to identify costs and benefits of interventions that were implemented. Especially, no recent data to show actual expenditure trends on gender interventions from the lead Ministry and the streamlining sectors. Data disaggregated on a geographical basis was readily available for education, literacy, health, economic status gender-based violence, family planning, women’s employment and participation in political and economic empowerment. There are also no credible models for resolving attribution when many policies are implemented to achieve one measurable outcome.

1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE REPORT

This report is organised as follows: this chapter provides the Introduction; the next, Chapter 2, Socio-economic context and MDG Achievements; Chapter 3: Key Policies and Interventions on Gender and Women Empowerment; Chapter 4 Gaps, Bottlenecks and Solutions; and Chapter 5 Conclusion and Recommendations.


CHAPTER 2: SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONTEXT AND MDG ACHIEVEMENTS

2.1 SOCIO-ECONOMIC FEATURES

Malawi is located in the Southern part of Africa, landlocked and surrounded by three countries – Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania. Its surface area is approximately 118,484 km2, of which 20 percent is covered by Lake Malawi. It is 901 kms long, and between 80 – 161 kms wide. Most of its urban areas and district headquarters are accessible and connected by all weather bitumen roads, but not so with much of its rural interior. Travelling between places within districts can in some cases take much longer than travelling between district centres that are further apart because of differences in road conditions.

According to the National Census of 2008, Malawi has a population of 13.2 million, of which 83 percent live in the rural areas. Females are more than men, as they make up 51 percent of the population. Generally, the country’s population is described as young because nearly 45 percent of it is below the age of 15. Life expectancy at birth is 45.5 years for females compared to 42.8 for males. A high proportion (42.2 percent) of the population is within the reproductive age group of 15-49 years.

The main economic occupation for Malawians, especially in the rural areas, is subsistence agriculture and this is estimated to involve more than 80 percent of the country’s labour force. Agricultural contributes around 30 percent to gross domestic product and about 80 percent of exports. Exports are largely dominated by tobacco, tea, cotton, coffee and sugar. Tobacco which earned US$472 million in the 2007/2008 season declined in earnings to about US$300 million in 2011 and US$176.7 million in 2012. Trade deficit as percentage of GDP stood at 21percent in 2010. Net debt as percentage of GDP, which had fallen from 137 percent in 2005 to 31 percent in 2006 and 29 percent in 2007 as a result of debt relief, has been reversed due to an increase in government expenditure, increasing the ratio to 45 percent in 2009 and 38 percent in 2010. Official Development Assistance accounted for 40 percent of government revenue in the 2010/11 fiscal year (and 19 percent of GDP in 2010).

Malawi still remains one of the poorest countries in the world with a Human Development Index (HDI) ranking of 171 out of 187 countries (UNDP 2012 HDR). According to the IHS3 (NSO, 2010), poverty headcount and ultra poverty stand at 50.7 percent and 24.5 percent, respectively. There has also been a rise in income inequality as indicated by the rise in the Gini-coefficient from 0.339 to 0.45 between 2005 and 2010. There is high concentration of poverty and ultra poverty in rural areas; poverty in rural areas is 56.6 percent relative to 17.3 percent in urban areas. Similarly, ultra poverty is 28.1 percent in rural areas compared to 4.3 percent in urban areas. There are regional variations, with the Centre ranked richest and the South as poorest. Females are less literate than their male counterparts; only 68 percent can read compared to 81 percent of males2.

2.2 ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Government implemented the first Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) from 2006 to 2011, as its overarching medium term development framework aimed at reducing poverty through economic growth and infrastructure development. During this period, the economy registered an average annual

2 DHS 2010


growth of 7.0 per cent. A successor strategy, the MGDS II, covering the period, 2011 to 2016 was introduced. During the first year of its implementation, Malawi faced a number of challenges including shortages of foreign exchange, fuel and erratic energy supply. Economic performance suffered as a result, the sectors most affected being wholesale and retail trade; transportation and storage; manufacturing, mining and quarrying, and construction. The result was a slowdown in economic growth from the 6.7 per cent in 2010 to 4.3 percent in 2011.

The government resorted to drastic reform measures to address the challenges: it devalued the Kwacha by 49 percent in 2012, floated the exchange rate; eliminated the surrender requirement of foreign exchange earnings from tobacco; and introduced stringent monetary and fiscal policies. The later included a series of interest rate rises, mopping up of liquidity and postponement of new development projects to achieve the objective of ”stable macroeconomic environment with low inflation”. It also liberalised pump prices of fuel and electricity. Significant rises in prices of imported goods, fuel, electricity and water as well as transportation followed. The devaluation also affected prices of drugs/medical equipment and education materials which are mostly imported, with implications on access to health and education, and thus progress in the MDGs. Inflation thus kept rising, reaching 25.5 percent in August 2012 from the average 7.6 percent in 2011.

The economic program of the current Government envisaged a rebound in growth in early 2013 (of between 4.8 to 5.2 per cent for 2013-2016). However, there are some recent developments that may delay recovery. The year-on-year inflation3, which was expected to peak at 23 per cent in December 2012, has accelerated rapidly already reaching 25.5 per cent in August 2012. This is despite the stringent monetary and fiscal policies pursued since early May 2012. If not checked, it is likely to challenge investment, hence growth4, and job creation. The 49 percent devaluation and subsequent continued deprecation of the Kwacha have led to significant rise in costs of imported capital and intermediate goods, raw materials and other inputs as well as fuel, electricity and transport. These are building up to rising cost of production of goods and services, thereby feeding into prices. Rises in wages in response to the rising cost of living may further fuel this. These together with very high lending interest rates threaten to offset the competitiveness-improving benefits of the devaluation.

In addition, earnings from tobacco5 and cotton, which were expected to be high (due to devaluation) and provide a cushion to the economy, turned out to be significantly lower. Despite good prices, tobacco earnings were more than 40 percent lower than the previous years6. Collapse in cotton price has also affected many farmers who had responded to government encouragement to produce more cotton7. Under severe liquidity problems, banks have resorted to the discount window facility of the central bank extensively8 despite the punitive rate involved. The discount rate for the uncollateralized window was set at 18.5 percent but was raised to 31 percent, and then 36 percent following which bank lending rate kept rising; lending rates in some banks went up as high as 38 percent. Although this is taken as part of the stringent monetary policy, such high interest rate has important implications for growth and banking risk. The extremely high interest rate on loans is bound to affect business activities in general and investment in particular with implications on growth and job creation. Energy shading which had affected production

3 Given that key imports such as fertilizer, fuel, spare parts, capital and intermediate goods, drugs and medical equipment were mainly being imported at the official rate, the 49% devaluation led to a significant rise in the price of these items and that of fuel, electricity prices and transport.

4 Many studies on the inflation-growth relationship show that the threshold inflation (the level of inflation beyond which it becomes harmful to economic growth) at between 7 to 13% (see Raphael Espinoza, Hyginus Leon and Ananthakrishnan Prasad, Estimating the Inflation-Growth Nexus—A Smooth Transition Model, IMF WP/10/76, March 2010).

5 Tobacco accounts for 15% of GDP (IMF Staff Report, July 2012)6 Prices (averaged US$2.23 per kg compared to US$1.04 per kg); devaluation was expected to immediately increase sales volume of

tobacco by reducing smuggling but did not materialise. Sales realisation for the 2012 season totaled only US$176.87 million compared to US$293.12 million in 2011 and US$410.6 million in 2010. The significantly lower than expected sales realization could be because large quantity had already been smuggled out before the kwacha was devalued.

7 Government encouraged cotton production for export (planning to earn US300 million) by allocating K1.6 billion for farmers to access cotton input to which they responded by increasing production by 365% over the previous year but then prices fell from K200 per kg to K70.

8 As of recently, the discount window facility which was supposed to be a “lender of last resort” has practically become a “lender of first resort” for many banks.


last year has continued with implication on energy dependent economic activities. All these are bound to affect performance of the economy as well as progress towards the Millennium Development Goals. 2.3 PERFORMANCE OF SOME GENDER RELATED MDG INDICATORS

Promotion of Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women is among the four MDGs that are lagging. Gender inequality exists and this status quo affects women more than their male counterparts. Women, who constitute 52 percent of the population are, in most cases, marginalized in social and economic spheres and hence, unable to effectively contribute to social, economic and political development of the country. The figures and tables below show the status of some MDG targets that are closely associated with gender equality and women empowerment.

Ratio of Girls to Boys in Primary and Secondary Education

The trend shows that the gender disparity gap at primary school level with respect to enrolment has been eliminated. This may be attributed to the abolition of school fees and school uniform as a requirement to attend classes. Improvement sanitation in most public primary schools has also made the school environment conducive for girls. Even the school feeding programme that has been rolled out to many districts in the country has contributed to retain children in lower primary school.

Source: MDHS 1992, 2000, 2004, EMIS 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011

Despite the commendable progress in increasing the ratio of girls to boys in secondary schools shown in the second figure of Figure 1, projection shows that a ratio of 1:1 will not be attained by 2015. Many girls drop out of school or repeat as they progress through the grades in primary education, thereby resulting in low girl intake at secondary school level and consequently at tertiary level. Some of the factors that force girls out of school include early marriages and pregnancies; family and cultural responsibilities; as well as limited space or opportunities Thus school survival rate for girls compared to boys steadily declines to almost zero from from secondary to tertiary education level.

Figure 1: Ratio of girls to boys by Primary and Secondary Education

Primary Education Secondary Education

Source: MDHS 1992, 2000, 2004, EMIS 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011

Figure 2: Ratio of girls to boys by Primary and Secondary Education


Share of women in wage employment in the non agriculture sector is a measure of employment opportunities. Figure 2 shows that although the share has improved considerably over the years, the 50 per cent target will not be met by 2015. Reasons for the lower participation in wage employment include low literacy levels, gender disparity and cultural values. Another contributing factor is limited job creation opportunities in the country and lack of gender responsive employment policy.

Proportion of seats held by women in National Parliaments

The proportion of seats held by women in national Parliament has improved significantly over time; it increased from only 6 percent in the 1994 election to 9 percent in the 1999 and 14 percent in the 2004 election. Currently, 22 percent of members of parliament are women However; the rate of increase is not as fast as would be required for the country to achieve its target of 50 percent by 2015. Contributing to the low participation of women in politics is lack of public appreciation of women participation in political decision-making as well as limited political skills among women MPs who often face high turnover in Parliament.

Poverty and literacy

Figures 3 and 4 present the status of poverty and literacy rate by region and women literacy by district respectively. They show that there are noticeable variations by region and district. Poverty is lowest in the Centre and highest in the South; but literacy is highest in the North and lowest in the Centre. Rumphi district has the highest percentage of literate women compared to male and the lowest percentage (1.2percent) of women who had not attended primary school. On the other hand, Nsanje has the lowest literacy levels for women and the highest percentage (29.8percent) of women who had no education. Almost all the districts in the northern region have the highest literacy rates as compared to other regions.

Source: IHS 1998 and 2005, 2011

Figure 3: Share of women in non-agriculture employmentFigure 3: Share of women in non‐agriculture employment

Source: IHS 1998 and 2005, 2011


Source: Based on IHS3 and DHS 2010

Figure 4: Poverty and literacy ratesFigure 4: Poverty and literacy rates

Source: Based on IHS3 and DHS 2010

0102030405060708090

North Centre South Rural UrbanPov_rate Lit_rate

Figure 5: Women literacy rates by district

Source: NSO, DHS 2010

Figure 5: Women literacy rates by district

49.1

50

51.5

54.9

56.9

57

60.6

63.8

64.2

65

66.2

66.7

67.8

68.3

70.9

72

72.3

72.3

73.5

74.5

74.9

75.4

76

78.1

80.8

85.4

87.8

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Nsanje

Dedza

Mangochi

Chikhwa…

Salima

Machinga

Nkhotakota

Phalombe

Dowa

Mchinji

Mulanje

Lilongwe

Thyolo

Chiradzulu

Neno

Ntchisi

Ntcheu

Kasungu

Mwanza

Karonga

Balaka

Zomba

Nkhatabay

Chitipa

Mzimba

Blantyre

Rumphi

Source: NSO, DHS 2010

Literacy rates by age and sex

Figure 5 below shows that literacy levels are the same for women and men in age 15-19 and the lowest for age group 45-49 for both sexes. However, the gap grows wider with age. The improvement in literacy levels for the young female generation could be attributed to the free primary education while that of older generation may be due to adult literacy education.


Literacy rates by economic background

Data consistently shows the same gap between the rich and the poor in literacy rates from 2001 to 2010, of about 30 percent. The literacy rate for the richest quintile is 94 percent, and the poorest 64 percent (DHS 2010) Drop-out rates are higher among poor households as compared to richer households. The lower literacy and higher drop-out rates among the lower income quintiles could be related to their economic hardships which eventually forces girls to participate in household chores and income generating activities. The survival rate for girls shows that over half of the girls enrolled in standard one do not reach standard 8. The reasons for drop out include family responsibilities, early marriages, pregnancies, and indirect education cost. Poor enabling facilities and long distances to schools especially in the rural areas are among the challenges. Furthermore, inability of poor parents to pay tuition fees for their children contributes to this situation.

Source: MoE, EMIS 2006-2011

Figure 7: School survival rates by sexFigure 7: School survival rates by sex

Source: MoE, EMIS 2006‐2011

53.3 53.6

78

62.7

74.7 75.4

27.2 26.1

49.9

37.945 47.2

0102030405060708090

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011

Survival Rate Standard 5Survival Rate Standard 8

Gender Based Violence

GBV includes, but is not limited to, domestic violence including Intimate Partner Violence, sexual violence, human trafficking and harmful traditional and cultural practices. Figures 6 and 7 shows the percentages of women in the 15 – 49 age group who ever experienced physical and sexual violence by District. Experience of physical violence is highest in Chikhwawa and lowest in Chiradzulu while sexual violence is highest in Chitipa and lowest in Chiradzulu districts. Most districts in the North have both higher literacy levels and abuse. Cultural values and practices could be one of the factors that contribute to Gender Based Violence.

Figure 6: Literacy rates

Source: MDHS 2010

Figure 6: Literacy rates

Source: MDHS 2010


Source: DHS 2010

Figure 8: Violence against women by districtFigure 8: Ever experienced physical violence by district

Source: DHS 2010

05

10152025303540

Chira

dzulu

Nen

oDo

wa

Salim

aMan

gochi

Balaka

Dedza

Nkhotakota

Mwan

zaKa

rong

aKa

sung

uMaching

aNtche

uLilong

we

Ntchisi

Phalom

beCh

itipa

Mzim

baMchinji

Thyo

loMulan

jeNkhatab

ayNsanje

Blan

tyre

Zomba

Rumph

iCh

ikhw

awa

The positive correlation between high literacy rate and experience of abuse suggests that in the northern region which is a patriarchal / patrilinial system, power relations between men and women worsen as women get empowered with education. Further analysis is required.

Knowledge about and use of contraceptives

The 2010 DHS shows that knowledge about modern contraceptives is high (above 98 percent) among women and men alike and there is no noticeable variation in knowledge by age, rural-urban, region, education level and wealth quintiles. However, despite the widespread knowledge, use of contraception is low; 65 percent of all women and 58 percent of all men of age 15-49 reported ever using any method of contraception at some time. Use of contraception at the time of the survey was even lower; it was 35 percent among all women age 15-49. Contraceptive use varies by residence, region, education, number of living children and wealth quintiles. It is higher among urban women (more than 50 percent) relative to rural women (45 percent). Contraception use increases with educational attainment; use is 57 percent among women with more than secondary level education compared to only 40 percent among women with no education. Women tend to delay contraception use until after they have at least one child. Contraception use is higher among women in the highest quintile income (53 percent) relative to those in the lowest income quintile (39 percent).

Involvement in a relationship among teen age girls is relatively high: 24 percent of girls age 15-19 are in a relationship (formal marriage or informal union); 20 percent of teenage girls are in a formal marriage compared to only 2 percent among teenage boys. The proportion of the young (aged 15-24) who had first sexual intercourse before the age of 15 years is relatively high: 14 percent for women and 22 percent for men. Women having sexual intercourse before the age of 15 is more common among the lowest income quintile (17.6 percent) compared to the highest income quintile (8.9 percent) for women.

SADC Gender Indicators Performance

The Human Development Report 2011 shows that Malawi`s Gender Inequality Index is 0.594; women labour participation rate is at 75; Adolescent fertility rate is 119.2 and Women seats in Parliament is at 22 percent. Mauritius is the first with an index of 0.353 while Malawi`s index is ninth out of fourteen within the SADC region. Malawi only comes out among the top countries only on one indicator - primary education. On all other indicators, she rates average or lower9. This may imply that the general policy environment and related interventions have been supportive of gender in primary education delivery especially from the mid 1990s.

9 See Appendix on Figures.


2.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR GENDER BASED INTERVENTIONS

The review of the economy’s performance has been done to show the contextual factors that may constrain the performance of gender based interventions. Poverty rates are quite high across the country despite variations on the urban-rural divide and the regional spread. Economic growth is at its lowest in the MGDS era. Government has embarked on an economic recovery plan, narrowing further the priorities of the MGDS from nine to five. This can only mean resource prioritization is unlikely to be in favour of non-economic sectors like gender in the short and perhaps medium term. The pressure to reduce poverty and stimulate growth is likely to be pursued at the expense of many other socially inclined considerations showing no immediate economic benefits. Advocacy for gender to prove that it has a role in the pursuit of all inclusive growth should be taken up with urgency.

Data from surveys on gender indicators show that interventions on education as reflected in literacy rates seem to have made stronger impact in the North than in the other two Regions, but vice versa on gender based violence. This means that gender based violence is more of a cultural phenomenon than one to do with education. There are some few good results – ratio of girls to boys in primary school and literacy rates for men and women in the 15-19 years old age group. Free primary education has had a good impact and if sustained for a longer period, literacy differences between men and women may disappear. The challenge though is on the survival rates of girls in primary school from Standard 5 and above.

The comparison with other countries in the SADC Region shows that Malawi is an average performer or behind on many indicators. The country needs to improve its gender service delivery in many areas for her to rise up in the rankings. This is possible only if the country develops gender responsive policy and legal frameworks that support the empowerment and protection of the girl child and women from discrimination in all fields of life.


CHAPTER 3: KEY POLICIES AND INTERVENTIONS

3.1 POLICY AND LEGISLATION

Malawi is a signatory to both international and regional conventions, treaties, declarations and protocols enforcing the rights of women and children. Paramount amongst these are the convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Africa Youth Charter and Convention on the Right of Children (CRC). the Vienna Declaration on Human Rights and Rights of Women, Beijing Platform for Action, the Millennium Development Goals (especially goal 3 which calls for equality and empowerment of women), the African Union Solemn Declaration on Gender Equality and the SADC Declaration on Gender and Development. At national level, there are a number of policy frameworks whose objective is to promote gender equality across all sectors. The country’s constitution prohibits discrimination of persons in any form and obliges the State to promote gender equality. Section 23 and 24 of the Constitution specifically provides for the rights of children and women..3.1.1 NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT POLICIES

Malawi has had one long-term and a number of medium-term development policies since the year 2000 when the MDGs were launched. The long-term one is the Malawi Vision 2020 which came into place in 1998 and serves as a basis for the preparation of medium-term plans that will lead to the vision for Malawi by the year 2020. The Vision captures the multi sectoral nature of development, as it comprises social, cultural as well as political changes. This vision under the fair equitable allocation of income consider gender equality as a challenge to development and proposes the following strategic options for reducing gender inequality: increasing women’s access and control of land; creating women farmers’ clubs to facilitate access to inputs and credit; removing any laws and customary practices that discriminate on the basis of gender; increasing access to quality education and health services and expanding micro-credit schemes targeting more on women and their groups; facilitating women’s access to employment and self employed income earning opportunities; and encouraging women’s participation in politics and decision-making. The first medium-term development strategy was the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (MPRSP) [2002 -2004], which takes into cognizance gender and empowerment as crosscutting issues from poverty as experienced differently by men and women. The strategy noted that poverty has a gender dimension due to various social, economic and cultural constraints, options, opportunities and needs. Gender disparities were viewed as critical prerequisite for attaining increased economic growth and sustainable human development. The MPRS was weak on addressing economic growth and Government supplemented it with the Malawi Economic Growth Strategy (MEGS) [2003 – 2005]. There was a recognized need for rapid broad-based growth and gender issues were an integral part of the overall national development agenda. Gender inequalities were critical in accessing productive resources, development opportunities and decision making affect economic growth and development.

After the MPRS, Malawi developed the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS I). The first Strategy document covered the period 2006 to 2011, and the successor MGDS II has been designed for 2012 -2016. The 2012 assessment on progress achieved in attaining the eight MDGs shows positive results. Four of the goals are likely to be achieved, and the other four are unlikely not for lack of effort to achieve them but due to the fact that the country had a much lower starting base compared to other countries. The


four MDG targets that are likely to be achieved are on, reducing infant mortality, combating HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing global partnership for development. The four MDGs that are lagging are on ‘Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger’; ‘Achieving universal primary education’, ‘Reducing gender inequality and Empower women’; and ‘Improve maternal health’. While both MGDS I and II recognise gender as a critical cross cutting issue, the recent one isolates gender as a separate thematic area. The main goal of the strategy is to mainstream gender in the national development process to enhance equal participation of both sexes for sustainable development and reducing incidence of gender based violence. As such, all policy frameworks across sectors are expected to have gender as a critical aspect of their interventions.

3.1.2 SECTORAL POLICIES

Key sectoral policy frameworks that are critical for the achievement of gender equality and women’s empowerment fall under the following Ministries: Education; Gender, Children & Social Welfare; and Industry & Trade.

3.1.2.1 EDUCATION POLICIES

The Ministry of Education has a number of policies that directly and indirectly address gender issues such as free primary education, readmission policy, gender parity, 50-50 secondary school selection, Adult literacy/functional literacy, equalisation of opportunities for people with disabilities, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC), early childhood development, and paediatric policies which include the under five. Through the introduction of free primary education policy and as a result of the implementation of all other education policies, significant progress has been made since 1994 to expand access to basic education for both boys and girls and in moving towards the goal of Education for All. The new educational policy is in favour of basic education and improvement of the whole education system (MoEST, 2000).

In terms of equity and access, the goal of education sector is “to improve the participation of girls and women, children with special needs and other disadvantaged youths” (MoEST, 2000, p. 7). The target is to increase female participation to at least 50% of the total national enrolments at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of the education system in Malawi.

Education of the girl child is widely acknowledged as a single and most powerful vehicle of self-advancement and fulfillment of developmental outcomes for the present and future generation of children. Girl’s education is an investment that serves as a way to achieve education for all children (Maluwa-Banda & Kholowa, 2002). In an attempt to address the many challenges the girl child faces, some pertinent policies and programmes have been introduced to improve the education of both girls and boys. The introduction of free primary education eliminated school fees for all children at primary education level. Although this policy has benefited both boys and girls, gender disparities in enrolment have been greatly reduced. There is also ongoing revision of the curricula to make it more gender sensitive. A Gender Appropriate Curriculum unit was established at Malawi Institute of Education (MIE) to offer training on gender sensitivity and ensure that curriculum textbooks have been engendered.

The re-admission policy allows school aged mothers to return to school after giving birth. Social mobilisation campaigns, whose aim is to change attitudes and behavior affecting girls’ education at grass-root level, are on-going and a number of donors are supporting the development of gender-balanced community schools so as to bring schools closer to communities.

3.1.2.2 GENDER, YOUTH AND SPORTS SECTOR POLICIES

The MoGCSW is the coordinating body of the national gender machinery and a leading agent in the gender sector. Although the sectoral divisions prescribe that Gender and Youth makes one Sector, there are two ministries that contribute make up the Government machinery for the sector: MoGCSW and Ministry of Youth & Sports Development.

The MoGCSW is guided by a number of policy frameworks such as the National Gender Policy. This policy promotes the full and equal participation of men and women in decision-making at all levels including


the community, district and national. In addition, there is the National Gender Programme, which aimed at operationalizing the National Gender Policy and ensure that it is in line with the MGDS. One of the key objectives of the National Gender Programme was to promote and protect women’s participation in politics and decision making and the rights of women. Both the National Gender Policy and the National Gender Program expired in 2010. The Ministry in collaboration with its key stakeholders has since drafted a revised policy document and a Joint Gender, Youth and Sports Sector Strategic Plan to cover the period 2012 to 2017. In order to take into account what is contained in the Strategic Plan and the MGDS II, there is need to further review the policy document to ensure that it embraces all government branches as well as the private sector and civil society. This will ensure that service delivery on gender equality and women empowerment is improved with a more encompassing policy with a robust resource mobilization strategy.

3.2 FUNDING AND PERFORMANCE

Funding for gender programs is relatively small and fragmented. The amount of funds available for Gender, Youth, and Sports Development was $5.7 million in 2009/10. UNICEF provided 31% of funds followed by UNDP (31%) and Norway (24%). Other donors included ICEIDA (7%), AFDB (4%), UNAIDS (3%), USAID (1%) and Canada (1%) (Malawi AID Atlas, 2009/10). Overall, Gender, Youth, and Sports Development received 1.9% of the annual aid budget in 2009/10.

The overall level of the gender budget can be seen in the figure below.

Figure1:Gendernationalbudgettrends

Figure 9: Gender national budget trends

Figure 9 shows that the national budget for gender has gone down in real terms over the last decade, while that of the key Ministries of Health and Education have increased. The Treasury budget has steadily declined from 2007 especially allocations for the other recurrent transactions (ORT). Government’s limited financial allocation to gender is explained by a number of reasons, among which are: (a) operationalisation of gender, as a cross cutting issue, is a challenge; (b) prevailing political will towards gender has not been translated into policy and financial reality (for example, the MoGCSW developed guidelines for engendering the budget but these were not adopted by the Ministry of Finance); (c) Government ministries and agencies have not created a budget line for gender programming on the national budget; and (e) donor support to singular projects rather than to a coherent national gender program.

The MoGCSW mobilised $9.99 million of aid funds in 2007/08, $11.0 million in 2008/09 and $4.4 million in 2009/2010 for gender mainstreaming. In 2007/08, government agencies accessed 80 percent of these

Source: author based Government Annual Budgets


direct funds but the amount dropped to 77 percent in 2009/10. Further, there are no basket funds for gender programming. A Sector Wide Approach (SWAP) and Sector Working Group (SWG) on gender has not yet been established. As such, CSOs are engaged in ad hoc and short term projects which often are not aligned to the National Gender Program. There is need to provide a conducive policy environment for joint programming. The SWG on gender would provide an opportunity for improved coordination of the National Gender sector strategy.

3.3 MONITORING AND EVALUATION SYSTEM

The MoEP&D in collaboration with the MOGCSW worked towards the establishment of an integrated monitoring and evaluation system, but fell short partly due to lack of resources and competing demands from various projects. Most sectors do not have gender disaggregated data and therefore it is difficult to know the impact of the NGP and other efforts toward achieving gender equality. Effective performance of the National Gender Machinery depends on availability of quality data and utilization; therefore, the MOGCSW needs to set up appropriate strategies and mechanisms, including financial accountability systems, for the delivery of a National Gender Program which will be adopted and reviewed periodically to enhance achievement of explicit results and measurable progress towards gender policy targets. The National Statistical Office, UNIMA research centers, the Planning Departments of all line Ministries and other relevant academic institutions should collaborate with the MOGCSW to generate gender specific and sex-disaggregated statistics and other data systems.

3.4 KEY INTERVENTIONS

The current key interventions in gender equality and women empowerment identification is informed by the review of the gender sector work-plans. This involves retreat among gender experts from government and development partners and the results of commissioned analytical studies. The process of stakeholder retreat produced list of current interventions. The scenarios of country report provided another source of information for identifying the current interventions. The interventions were categorized based on gender gaps/ challenges they are addressing: (a) policy and legislation (b) the social and economic value of gender equality and equity and (c) cultural, traditional and religious factors.

3.4.1 POLICY AND LEGISLATION

A number of interventions have been designed and are being implemented to address this which include, for example, the Will and Inheritance Act, Gender Based Violence Act. Some bills are being processed for enactment in the Parliament which includes: Gender Equality, Marriage, Divorce and Family Relations Bill. Equally important are the policy framework such as the National Gender Policy, Malawi National Economic Empowerment policy, engendering of electoral laws among various gender sensitive laws and policies. The Government and other stakeholders over the years have introduced different policies and programs on gender equality and women empowerment such as Free Primary School Education (1994), Re-admission policy (1996), Equalisation of Opportunities for People with Disabilities to include a girl child with disabilities (2009), 50/50 campaign (2008/2009), Safe Motherhood policy, Gender Based Violence Act. 3.4.2 Socio -Economic Value of Gender

There is need for decision and policy makers to appreciate the importance of gender equity and equality. Currently various interventions are on-going in this area to address these gaps, and among them: The Joint UN Programme on Adolescent Girls in Malawi (2010-2013) – UNFPA, UNICEF WHO and being implemented by MOGSCW. This programme is ongoing in two districts and one TA each as the program was planned. The anticipated result from the program are around adolescent girls education, sexual and reproductive health information, mechanism for protection and management of sexual and gender- based violence, adolescent girls participation and leadership in youth and community development imitative, and enhanced utilization of age and sex disaggregated data for planning adolescent initiatives. This program is a employing holistic to address the gaps for adolescent girls.

There are some interventions addressing gender specific barriers to education which include high cost of sending the girl child to school (direct and indirect), poor quality and relevance of curriculum, cultural


Expectation about attribute and behaviour appropriate to women and men are shaped by culture, tradition, religion and history. The resulting pattern has been that women have less personal autonomy, fewer resources at their disposal and limited influence over decision making. At the community level, cultural and religious factors have placed firm limitations on the role that women, girls and boys can play in a society, with certain gainful occupations completely out of reach for some of the gender groups.

One of the few initiatives in this area is Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) in schools by FAWEMA and supported by UNICEF. FAWEMA is implementing in two districts at two schools still at pilot stage, MHM has been shown to cause adolescent girls worry and humiliation, contribute to absenteeism and lead to poor performance in schools (UNICEF, 2010; WaterAid, 2009; Lidonde, 2005). UNICEF (2010) suggests that acquaintance with a country’s beliefs around menstruation and providing girls with correct information about puberty are important elements in a holistic school MHM package. Ignorance about menstrual

The Functional Literacy and Integrated Rural Development (FLIRD) Programme

This Programme aimed at reducing poverty through sustained economic growth and infrastructure development. The main objective was to increase literacy and enhance livelihood base in a sustainable manner. This was to be achieved through the attainment of one MDG based integrated rural development programme implemented in 12 districts. The beneficiaries of FLIRD were all illiterate adults as well as boys and girls above primary school going age.

Key achievements were: a) A total of 757 individuals, 70% females, were mobilized into cooperatives in 12 traditional authorities in different agro-business sectors including, inter alia, dairy, honey production, and fish farming; b) Out of a total participation of 66,385 individuals consisting of 55,099 (83%) female and 11,286 (17%) male, 33,101 were declared literate consisting of 27, 163 female (82%) and 5,938 male (18%). This represented an overall pass rate of 50%. Overall, the new number of people declared literate has contributed to about 23.16% against the programme target of 20% by 2011.

The key to the success was the REFLECT approach, which stands for Regenerated Freirean Literacy through Empowerment Community Techniques. In this approach, there is no textbook or literacy primer other than a guide for literacy facilitators. The REFLECT process entails engaging a community in a needs identification process that translates into proposed actions, referred to as livelihood activities. The programme then uses its district structures to appraise the proposed action points to determine their viability before funding them. The community then engages in the livelihood activities alongside literacy classes. The livelihood activities are in form of goat rearing, poultry, irrigation, bakery, fish farming, tinsmith, dairy farming and bee keeping. More attention was paid on the activities that were business in nature that would lead to business promotion and cooperative development or commercialization. The livelihood activities were supported through a grant called Livelihood Fund as well as grants from other donors mobilized locally such as Airtel Malawi Ltd, COMSIP, Umunthu Microfinance, OVOP, MARDEF, MRFC, SHDI, EU, LDF, UNICEF, DEMAT, Concern Universal.

constraints and security issues and inadequate school infrastructure. The child friendly school initiative aims to contribute to increasing access, retention and performance of children in school, particularly girls as a direct contribution to improve equity, accessibility, quality, relevance and sustainability of basic education. The initiative works to reduce female repetition and dropout rates, eliminate the gender gap in enrolment, increase gender awareness in locations where girls’ education is a challenge and strengthen parent teachers association and mothers’ clubs to ensure active participation in school management, advocacy and promoting retention of girls and rights to quality education.

The Ministry of Education has developed and implemented projects/programmes in addressing on-going social and economic value of gender equality. The Education programme for Infrastructural development (over the years), school feeding programme, vocational skills for girls in agriculture, GABLE Social Mobilisation Campaign for Education Quality phase I &2 which achieved tangible results but unfortunately was not sustained.

3.4.3 CULTURAL, TRADITIONAL AND RELIGIOUS VALUES


issues is prevalent not only amongst school girls but also in organisations and communities. Girls may consequently stop going to school because of this problem.

Another programme under implementation by the MoGCSW is Community based Population Programme Enhancing Reproductive Health. It covers nine districts, targeting opinion leaders, custodians of traditional laws at community level to create awareness on harmful cultural practices.

3.5 IMPLIMENTATION FOR GENDER PROGRAMMING

Current interventions provide an opportunity for a multi- dimensional approach to address gender equality including women’s access to education, health, information, as well as to improve economic and political opportunities. In terms of MDG 3 performance, general efforts are being made to achieve this goal. Given the experience with other non-gender related goals that have been given good technical and financial support, Malawi stands a chance to improve and accelerate achievements on gender related MDGs by 2015.

There is insufficient gender disaggregated data and lack of adequate monitoring and evaluation of gender equality and women empowerment, establishment of gender disaggregated management information system is key to address this issue. Addressing capacity gaps in areas such as planning, coordination, implementation, organizational, technical and leadership capacity for National Gender Machinery require strategic planning and capacity development efforts. When compared to other countries, Malawi has a macro-level problem that has to do with enforcing the implementation of gender responsive public policies and legal instruments. The entire budget cycle, from planning to accounting, needs to incorporate gender dimensions to ensure that resources are effectively allocated based on identified needs and revenues and expenditure are structured to benefit both men and women.

Amongst the interventions discussed, there is none addressing rural women’s land right and economic security which imply that gender is not adequately considered in land policies and legislation. This is because of lack of awareness in communities of women rights, lack of capacity of national actors including policy makers to adequately consider women’s needs and rights in land issues. The advocacy for policy, legal and other changes toward engendering the process, implementation and monitoring of land reform in Malawi is crucial.


CHAPTER 4: GAPS, BOTTLENECKS AND SOLUTIONS

4.1 GAPS

4.1.1 POLICY GAPS

Education

One of the gaps that exist in policies that affect the education of the girl child is concerned with the selection criteria in the education sector. Policies are not adequately affirmative, examinations do not accommodate learning environment disparities for ‘would be’ qualified and capable pupils who would otherwise make it to secondary and university level, but do not because of limited space in these institutions. In the past however, some equality selection policies were attempted (e.g. quota system into the university, 50:50 selection in CDSSs, 100% female scholarships in the college of medicine, GABLE e.t.c.) some of which have however either been discontinued or phased out. Quota system was created to bring about equality, i.e. 10 spaces reserved for every district, including girls. While the 50:50 policy is being exercised, it is not applied for other secondary schools, e.g. the selection criteria in the CDSSs always admitting 50% boys and 50% girls.

Some of the main problems with these equality policies include the lack of appreciation of the impact of these policies by the policy and decision makers, the lack of understanding of the benefits of the policies due to limited dissemination of information around these policies and failure of government to roll out effective programmes to benefit the entire nation as nationalised and sustainable programmes (e.g. GABLE: refer text box on GABLE). In addition to these decision making constraints, there are also resource constraints which limit the ability of government to roll out and nationalize the implementation of effective programmes, as the implementation of these policies are very expensive.

Another major gap in the education sector revolves around the unequal geographic distribution of schools, with more schools found in urban areas than rural areas. This gap should be filled in by the private sector which can help in the construction of more private schools at all levels (i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary) in the country. The government should provide bursaries/ scholarships for girls to these schools so that access to these schools is not limited to the wealthier part of the population. And government should assist in making available related trainers, teachers, instructors and lecturers.

Economic policies

There exist deficiencies to address gender balance in the current fiscal and monetary frameworks in that they have not cushioned women and girls in their attempts to compete fairly with men. Current government efforts have undoubtedly assisted to improve the status of women participation in non-agricultural formal employment whose participation has risen to 33% by 2008 (NSO population census report). Government is encouraged to include gender balance components in monetary and fiscal policies to adequately invest in gender balance taking cognizance of the fact that women constitute over 50% of the population. The survival rate of school going children plunges to 5% (Country Status Review: 2010) at secondary school


level completion, of which the share of girls is negligible. There is need to apportion a percentage of gender balance in the monetary and fiscal policy framework to ensure the survival rate for secondary school completion among girls is deliberately raised to 60% and over. This would help successfully manage the fiscal and monetary policies in the country. This would also be a realistic approach to vision 2020 – an industrialized and middle income country.

There is need for a policy decision to allocate, for example, a percentage share of the tax revenue to be reserved for gender issues in relation to allowing our girls and boys to survive beyond 60% at secondary school level. Further, interest rates on loans should be reduced for women entrepreneurs. Deregulation (i.e. around tax rates, boarder import and export regulations, loan guarantees and surety) of the money policy gap that will lead to increased investment by female households and remove some obstacles to development should take place. Policies in this area are currently not conducive to development saving and deposits. There is a lack of regulatory frameworks for deposit taking that would facilitate financial deposit takers, especially those operating in rural areas to take deposits from rural women.

Gender policy

Another major policy gap affecting women revolves around the lack of neither a national gender policy nor a strategic document that would provide policy guidance in all sectors on how to address gender issues. Despite drafts of the gender policy and strategic plan being formulated, neither have been finalised nor endorsed by government so that they can start being implemented. In addition, the post Beijing Platform of Action was never ratified and as a result, the country does not have a national gender action plan.

Another major gap has been the fact that gender has always been considered a cross cutting issue in national development strategies, e.g. Vision 2020, MPRSP, MGDS I and II. While this would otherwise be beneficial, the fact that it is everybody’s business (cross cutting) means it is no body’s baby. Gender issues are addressed only through mainstreaming strategies, and while mainstreaming guidelines exist their implementation has faced numerous challenges due to limited expertise of qualified gender focal points. In addition the national government budget only treats gender as a sector and not as an overarching multi-sectoral issue. The national budget should allocate at least 5% of the budget to gender issues in all sectors and 50% of the ministry’s allocation to be for the gender department in the ministry.

Health policy

In terms of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Policy, despite a very good policy being in existence, gaps exist around its implementation. The SRH Policy lacks prioritisation, evidence for some of its policy statements and the related strategies, and poor classification for some of its interventions. All policies appear to be of equal importance and this does not augur well for planning and managing with limited resources, especially in the context of addressing adolescent girl pregnancies. For example, there is clear evidence from studies that maternal mortality increases with age (highest in the 35 – 45 year age group)10 but this does not appear to receive any special attention in the policy framework. Some policy statements are made in areas where there is no data or objective evidence about the magnitude of the problem e.g. infertility, harmful practices/domestic violence11. There is also need to improve on the monitoring of its implementation.

4.1.2 DATA GAPS

The country does not have a gender specific database. Despite the country having taken gender as a cross cutting issue, there is no gender disaggregated data. There is need to establish an M&E system which would be managed by economists, an MIS system to be manned by a systems analyst and a statistical information system to be managed by statisticians to model and plan around gender issues.

10 MICS 2006, DHS 2010, DHS 2004.11 In this aspect, the SRHR Policy looks like a shopping basket for every existing reproductive health problem. Malawi or the world does not

have resources to resolve all health problems; institutions operate well by limiting their operations to issues where there is evidence or data because by their nature they have to be accountable. Other issues should be relegated to research or trial interventions.


4.1.3 SERVICE DELIVERY GAPS

There are visible gaps in service delivery in terms of coverage in the country. Rural areas and communities do not appear to have the same access as urban areas to services that can help to eliminate gender disparities. In a study that mapped the delivery of women economic empowerment services, Dan Church Aid finds that the presence of service providers for economic empowerment is limited to urban settings (Dan Church Aid, EEW Project, 2011). Given the uneven terrain in statistics on GBV, literacy, and poverty, it is likely that gaps in coverage exist in many other livelihood areas. It is likely that service provision is limited or missing in areas that show poor performance on literacy or health or GBV. These gaps are attributed to policy, funding and capacity problems.

There are also gaps in human abilities and capacities in decision making bodies to absorb available resources which result in limited service delivery and minimal outreach to the people in need. The weak leadership coupled with the weak gender machinery leads to weak coordination and implementation of the gender agenda in general. The limited number of qualified technical experts means capacities to deliver on the gender agenda are constrained with many of the decision makers still conceptualizing approaches to gender through the former approach of Women in Development (WID) instead of the current Gender and Development (GAD) approach. The existing gender ‘experts’ have conservative frames of mind and are not up to date with the current gender discourse which is affecting their ability to implement policies effectively.

4.1.4 SERVICE UTILIZATION GAPS

The populace is not educated on the services, policies and options available to them from the government and service providers. Because they do not know their options, they are not able to demand what they are entitled to. The service providers are not doing enough to educate the people on the services that are available to them and what they can demand and expect from the system. Civic education should be brought back to the education curriculum at all levels, starting at the primary and onto secondary education levels.

4.2 BOTTLENECKS AND SOLUTIONS

4.2.1 POLICY AND PLANNING

4.2.1.1 Social, cultural and economic bottlenecks

Societies all around the world have defined roles and limits for various gender groups. To a large extent, the girl child is expected to play an active role around the home while the boy child is expected to do the same in society. Domestic duties around the household have been known to affect girls’ attainment in education. If they have to cook, and clean and then study, their pass rate will be affected and likely lower than that of boys who have a lot more free time to study (on the assumption that boys are not equally engaged other society or domestic chores). Some scholars have suggested that boys and girls be placed in separate secondary schools to encourage high attainment / performance of girls in education since they have less distraction.

The gender disparity that exists in the selection of boys and girls to secondary schools need to be addressed. This stems from the limited value placed on the education of the girl child. Due to limited financial resources, the decision makers at the household level usually prefer sending boys rather than girls to secondary school i.e. gender preference problems. As a solution, the government should introduce special education scholarships for the vulnerable girls from ultra poor households and all needy girls. Primary and secondary education completion should be made compulsory for all girls. In addition, scholarships should be provided for all girls at the tertiary level to make sure no girl is unable to attain tertiary education because of limited financial resources. Community mobilization should be used to ensure all children go to school. Chiefs can be used to follow this up, and keep track and map education attainment of girls in their own communities.

Male involvement in the promotion of girls’ education is hindered by men’s perception that gender issues are for and have to be dealt with by women. Institutions at all levels - national, district and community – do not have adequate capacity in terms of funding and resources to resolve harmful cultural practices.


Advocacy is necessary at all levels, including for religious leaders, policy makers, fathers and male chiefs (etc) so that they understand that pushing girls’ education equates to pushing for the advancement of the whole nation.

Absenteeism is high for the girl child from school due inability to afford sanitary materials and care during menstruation (e.g. sanitary pads). The girl child suffers from stigma on menstruation as society looks at it as an evil rather a natural process that can be faced positively. This can be addressed through initiatives to make sanitary pads more affordable (removing tax duties on them) and promoting personal hygiene practices and education in schools and communities. In the long run school facilities should provide better sanitary facilities and more mentoring on positive attitudes towards natural body processes. Activities trying to overcome these cultural factors are facing funding problems, and currently take place in one school each in two districts.

The re-admission policy which gives girls who drop out of school due to pregnancy the chance to complete their education is facing a huge number of implementation problems, not least of which include the non acceptance of the returning students, by the victims (girls) themselves, as well as by their peers. The implementers (i.e. teachers) are also not very receptive of the returning students, as they are not able to objectively give the returning girls guidance and advice. They are often engulfed in their culture of not communicating openly about sexual matters to their own ‘children’. The teasing of the returnees by their peers [that they are ‘mothers’ (ntchembele)] does not create a conducive environment for girls to return to school. In addition, the teachers do not put much effort into creating a conducive environment for the returnees, which is made even worse by the lack of psycho-social counseling in schools as part of the curriculum. In some cases, even though it may be part of the curriculum, teachers usually focus on examinable subjects, and so it is not given priority. To compound all these issues around the school environment, this non conducive environment is also available in the girls’ homes/households. It revolves around the extent to which parents, aunties, uncles and other adults in the home encourage or discourage and help the girl make the right decisions after she gets pregnant.

All problems around the re-admission policy point to the fact that the policy is not well publicized so that stakeholders, including parents and guardians, understand its benefit. The solution proposed is therefore to implement the best practice currently on record, that of a teacher who ‘follows’ the student after giving birth and encourages them to go back to school. Teachers should be mobilized and encouraged to take up their position as counselors for the children. In addition, health workers should be outsourced to teach the students about menstrual and SRH issues. Communication strategies and campaigns to publicize this policy should be conducted, with politicians to be used as the major communicators of this strategy. This communication strategy should be disseminated widely and all information should be readily available. Training of teachers in psychosocial counseling should be conducted, with teachers that are already trained getting refresher courses regularly. The involvement of parents as well as pupils in sub- national management processes should be encouraged.

Another bottleneck facing the readmission policy is the limited funding for mother group initiatives. These groups are meant to provide social support, counseling, and care for the girl child even when she becomes pregnant at school. Several schools in the country have established them. But these groups are voluntary so they face a high rate of turnover, and besides, their operations require funding and this is limited as of to date.

To ensure the advancement of the girl child in education, gender should be mainstreamed in school curriculum. The gender mainstreaming policy currently in existence should be more aggressively implemented so as to ensure the girl child is adequately supported by the education system. 4.2.1.2 Capacity Bottlenecks

Because it is easier for a girl child to learn when she has female teachers, there is a need to increase the number of female teachers in rural areas. A major bottleneck in this area is that teachers get married and their spouses cannot easily find jobs in rural areas. As a result, urban schools are overstaffed with female teachers (Education PETS Report, Ministry of Economic Planning, 2008). Better teacher housing


and incentives targeted at female teachers in rural areas could get to resolve this problem. This problem should be dealt with through the introduction of compulsory primary and secondary education for all girls as suggested above. Girls should be given full scholarships so that they complete their education and are eligible to apply for TTCs if they so wish.

There is a limited number of training institutions to produce trainers in areas around sciences and technology, as well as a shortage of labs and learning materials in science, especially in secondary schools. As a result, medical college and postgraduate science courses have very limited coverage because of the limited number of students eligible for such courses, especially girls, who qualify. There is need for a firm policy on the promotion of science and technology in the country.

In addition, vocational training should be institutionalized and incorporated in the curriculum so that girls are taught some vocational skills by the time they graduate primary and secondary school. This is beneficial in the case where they do not make it to college, since they are still able to make a basic living. In designing school infrastructure, there should be sections specifically designed for vocational skills. Furthermore, there are a limited number of trainers in the area of training special needs people. There are limited number of role models to encourage the special needs persons to take part in training. The government should take a position in scaling up training for special persons trainers. Institutions lack advocacy skills and communities hold negative perceptions towards disabilities and their associated issues. Persons with disabilities are usually sheltered and not brought out and allowed to participate in community life. Disability issues should be mainstreamed at all levels, and advocacy skills training should be scaled up. Persons with special needs should be given bursaries so that the go to schools and complete their education.

4.2.1.3 Infrastructure bottlenecks

Infrastructure bottlenecks exist on the availability of child friendly schools infrastructure, GBV victim support units (at Police Stations and the Community), and youth friendly service outlets on health matters. These bottlenecks appear to be more pronounced in rural areas than urban areas.

There is limited capacity in the country to construct standardized architectural design for girl child friendly schools. In addition, there are few structures for cooking in local schools (school feeding programme) to improve school attendance. Government needs to scale up this programme, e.g. through the millennium villages where communities grow and provide food at school to encourage children to stay in school. Government should subsidize the communities on cooking materials and utensils and even fertilizer and other inputs for the production of maize and soya etc. Furthermore, not many schools have disabled persons friendly structures. The government should take a position in constructing special person infrastructure.

In addition, the limited infrastructure in rural areas is another major bottleneck. The majority of girls who drop out of school are from rural areas. There should be more secondary schools in rural areas so that girls have access to a higher education than just primary school. More hostels should be built so that the intake of girls can increase and they can stay on campus and be able to concentrate on school. More bridges and more rural feeder roads to facilitate access to the schools by service providers should be constructed. With about 85% of the population of Malawi living in rural areas, we need to put in place structures to cater for these people. Putting secondary schools in urban areas only severely limits the number of children that have access to a higher education. More construction will create an enabling environment for girls to be able to continue with education where the majority of girls are residing, which will in turn create a bigger pool of females who are eligible to go into teacher training colleges. This could lead to more female teachers and therefore more girls educated by extension.

The final major bottlenecks identified in infrastructure revolves around school environment issues, e.g. in the case of menstrual hygiene for adolescent girls. A policy gap exists around common standards on the construction of schools. There is need for a policy which proposes the kind of facilities to be found on every school premise, (i.e. bathrooms and toilets) so that girls do not have to stay away from school when they are menstruating. The policy which dictates the standards for all schools should include water harvesting technologies so that safe water and sanitation is not an issue.


4.2.1.4 Gender Machinery

Numerous bottlenecks exist around the weak coordination of the gender agenda. There is need for the strengthening of the coordination capacities of the national gender machinery. National interventions are usually very fragmented. There is need to build up capacity of the existing technical specialists in gender, to increase their capacity to understand, and implement the gender agenda effectively. All these capacities and management of gender issues stem from the lack of institutionalized gender training. Many gender focal points in key functions are generic experts who are given the extra task of managing gender issues. Because the institutions do not produce gender experts, there are a limited number of gender experts to push the gender agenda in key development institutions. Suggested solutions to this include the introduction of short courses at Magomero or Chancellor College to produce a pool of in service gender experts to coordinate national gender programmes. In the long term, courses at degree level and above should be provided in these institutions. At sectoral level, we should establish positions at technical (deputy director) and policy (P.S. and minister) levels in government, institutionalize gender training in government and key institutions as well as create a data base on individuals who have training in gender. The institutionalization of the Labour Management Information Systems (LMIS) and Education Management information system (EMIS) at national level in the department of human resource (in the OPC) and in the ministry of labour should be fast tracked so as to facilitate this process.

The lack of an M&E systems on gender leads to policies which are not evidence based. This means there is very limited availability of gender disaggregated data. A proposed solution to this is to establish a Gender Management Information System (GMIS) in the Ministry of Gender. This GMIS should cover a broad spectrum of gender information, including information and data on possible role models for young girls.

4.2.1.5 Empowerment

Policy bottlenecks exist around the SADC 50:50 policy protocols on ‘50:50’ representation of women and men in decision making positions. While Malawi is a signatory at the SADC, CEDAW and AU protocols on the inclusion of women in leadership positions, none of these policies have been domesticated and ratified. The lack of affirmative action at the local level to push for and bring these policies to fruition is a huge bottleneck in the empowerment of women.

This is perhaps perpetuated by the traditional lack of appreciation of the value of women in decision making positions. While the men contribute a great deal to this lack of appreciation, there is a lack of assertiveness and self confidence amongst the women due to the lack of exposure and limited education in the majority of women. The further lack of exposure and interaction with existing role models also does not serve to encourage young girls to aspire to achieve more in life.

A proposed solution would be to domesticate and ratify all of the 50:50 policy protocols through the development of our own national policies in this line. Aggressive campaigns for the 50:50 inclusion of women and men should continue and women already in decision making positions should be used to serve as examples of the ability of women to maintain those positions. Women MPs should be trained in various areas of parliamentary procedures, media relations and development management, so that they are able to deliver for their constituents and re-election. Achievements of women MPs should be documented and used to communicate successes and lessons learnt of women in political decision making positions. Exchange visits of women MPs should be conducted so that local MPs learn from their peers in the region, while girls should be taught from early primary school age to know the options they have in terms of politics, entrepreneurship and other leadership roles. Electoral laws should be engendered, and the adoption of affirmative action on the quota system for reserved seats in parliament and local government should take place12. In relation to other leadership positions in public and private sector, workplace recruitment, promotion and policies should also be engendered.

Economic empowerment limitations (i.e. participation of women in non agriculture wage employment) and in the private sector affects growth of women entrepreneurship and their contribution to economic

12 It should be noted however that while a national 50:50 policy is lacking, policies advocating for the equality of women and men in decision making positions are existent in some sectors, e.g. vocational education.


growth. Policy issues around interest rates are not gender responsive and inhibit access to loans and financial start-up capital for women. Macro economic and fiscal policy formulation does not take into consideration how the impact of changes and policies made affect women and children. Policies on job creation do not take into consideration the kind of jobs the majority of women in Malawi are ‘able’ to take up. At macro level, policy decisions should be made with the effect they will have on women in mind. A quota system should be introduced in the formal sector and decision making positions to lead to the increase of women in positions where women can perform. Promotions should be made based on self assessments and the ability of the women to deliver in those areas. Policies to attract women in traditionally male positions should be formulated, e.g. the introduction of holidays favourable for women (e.g. good maternal leave benefits) and the introduction of paternal leave. Awareness is needed around the benefits of paternal leave which enables the woman to have free time for her job even though she has just given birth. Bays and conducive environments should be created in work places for postnatal nursing so that mothers can be available at the office. This should be created and implemented in tandem with the exclusive breast feeding policy.

For the youth, the government could start a national young professional programme to train young graduate students in non established positions. This would solve the problem of many young people, especially women who are unemployed. The government could also open up the investment policy and tax breaks so that young ladies should be able to start their own businesses or grow their business. The government should provide loans to the youth to start businesses. The current scheme on YEDEF is a good initiative, but it is highly politicized. Removing this aspect and put in place a mechanism that ensures the youth pay back the loans could have a huge impact on financial and economic empowerment of many young people in the country, especially girls.

The economic empowerment of women would be beneficial in numerous ways, not least of which could be the reduction of gender based violence (GBV) (against women as well as men) in households. Women who are not financially independent are not able to report GBV against them because they depend on the abusers. Men who experience GBV feel ashamed to come out in the opne. The power relations are not balanced because if they report the perpetrators, they will suffer the consequences through the financial problems that follow the arrest of the partner. In addition, because laws around GBV are not translated in the local language, there is limited awareness of laws due to non disseminations and the lack of understanding of these laws by victims of GBV. There is need therefore for awareness raising of the laws and dissemination after the translations into the local language are done.

The poor coordination mechanisms for GBV interventions, mitigation and reporting that exist hint at deeper gender machinery shortfalls. There is a need to link between VSUs in police, other points of contact of GBV victims and policy makers at the national level. There is no structure to coordinate GBV reporting. There is a need to establish a GBV regulatory authority as a structure to coordinate, collect data and create a database, analyse and create mitigation measures, create education tools to educate data collectors as well as responders. This could be done through the reestablishment of the national commission of women with GBV coordination as a unit in it. This unit would be used to solve the problem of people that do not know about the existence of policies around CRC, GBV, child protection and human rights policies.

4.2.1.6 Food Security

Because women constitute more than 80% of the rural agricultural labor force and are also the main beneficiaries of the Farm Input Subsidy Programme (FISP) whose impact on food security has been proven, policies on household food security need to be strengthened through the FISP. Some of the major bottlenecks that exist around this programme are the lack of a sustainable exit strategy so that at some point, the beneficiaries from the programme are able to graduate from the programme. Solutions to these bottlenecks could be to develop a viable exit strategy to empower beneficiaries (especially women) of the FISP to be self reliant so that at some point they graduate from FISP. Another one is to advocate for stiffer penalties for culprits of the FISP. A further solution could be to increase the proportion of female and adolescent girl headed households who benefit from this programme. At the policy level, the proper implementation of the FISP should be reinforced through the guidelines and the formulation of an act


around this programme. Administration of the FISP can be outsourced on a rotational basis to promote the efficient management of the programme.

Beneficiaries of this programme should be provided with alternatives. Public works and other initiatives (e.g. VSL, food for work, facilities for post harvest storage etc) should be used in tandem with the FISP to give them options and increase their chances of economic independence. We should explore possibilities of the local production of inorganic fertilizer, as well as other imported farm inputs so that inputs are cheaper to buy for farmers. Scaling up of higher valued crops (soya, legumes and pigeon peas) and alternative crops should be encouraged so that there are options to maize for the beneficiaries. The women should be taught business management so that they are able to plan and carry out their businesses effectively.

4.2.1.7 Policy Incentives

Key sectors that need special policy incentives from the government so as to contribute to the advancement of the girl child include the education and health sectors. Incentives to female teachers in rural areas should be extended to female nurses and health personnel in rural areas. Incentives include decent housing, hardship allowances and technologies that enable them to stay connected to family and friends in urban areas etc.

Another key sector needing policy incentives from the government is agri-based entrepreneurship for women. Women entrepreneurs should be linked to international markets and provided with incentives to create more than 5 jobs. The lack of the culture of saving and business skills mindedness among women can be minimized through communities being educated and made aware of the benefits of community mobilization through Village Savings and Loans (VSL) and IGA for women and adolescent girls. Women should be given business skills training to be able to invest in VSL and increase their businesses through this. Exchange visits can be arranged between areas engaged in VSL so that they learn best practices from one another. Linkages between the VSLs and formal financial structures should be created so that women who manage to save a lot and are not willing to immediately reinvest the money should be able to deposit it in these formal structures.

Another special area is the social cash transfers, which should be targeted at ultra poor girls’ families and girl child headed households. Targeting is currently directed at ultra poor households despite the presence or absence of a girl child. Another aspect of the targeting of the social cash transfer should be based on households that have a girl child. One of the major bottlenecks of the social cash transfer is limited resources and the limited coverage which leaves out many needy people. Currently, the programme has not yet reached all districts in the country, therefore, a policy to roll out the social cash transfer nationally should be established. Current donors include the German government, EU, UN, Norway, Save the Children International and these should mobilize more resources to roll the initiative out across the nation. In addition to this, the government should disseminate the social security policy that is in place to create awareness among the general public, particularly among the potential beneficiaries.

4.2.1.8 Child Protection Policies

Policies around child protection in schools need to be reinforced. Issues around safety of the girl child in the home and in schools related to gender based violence (GBV) need to be identified and addressed. Attitudes and perceptions that target girls as the cause of their own abuse/harassment need to be changed through sensitization of communities. These policy shortfalls can be addressed through the use of projects such as the safe schools project and mother groups. Further, advocacy for policies and laws need to be put in place to give stiffer penalties for adult offenders that impregnate and harass underage girls and all other perpetrators of GBV. More female magistrates should be recruited and trained. Communities need to be sensitized on the availability of VSUs and encouraged to use them.

Early child marriage is perpetuated by traditional values and culture. Despite a lot of political will to change the age at marriage of the girl (from 16 years old), there is a lot of resistance from the local communities. The clash between customary and legal sectors on the age at marriage was determined mostly by the traditional values around the age at puberty and traditional expectations from a girl at this age. Tradition


does not provide a conducive environment for delaying marriage for a girl that has reached puberty. Despite constitutional law dictating the legal age at marriage to be 18 years old, those in leadership and decision making positions are also driven by the same cultures and traditions, which makes it difficult for them to delink themselves from tradition and drive for the implementation or review of the constitutional law on age at marriage. A major contributing bottleneck is the schooling environment which facilitates early marriage. When girls drop out of school or complete primary education, there are no secondary schools to go to within their vicinity, thereby limiting the options for an adolescent girl beyond marriage.

One of the solutions to this problem could be the automatic promotion of the child in primary and secondary education from one stage to the next so as to reduce dropout rates of girls in schools. Further, if every primary school has a secondary school on the same premise, drop out and incompletion of schools will be minimized greatly. More secondary schools should therefore be built in rural areas so as to encourage the completion of secondary education by girls. There is need to advocate for policy change on age at marriage. Such advocacy should include publicizing best practices of countries that have changed this policy and the benefits that resulted from the change. Even best practices that have taken place locally should be publicized. Civic education on the importance of delayed marriage for a girl child should be conducted. Awareness creation among the girls about the policies, laws, options and alternatives that are there to marriage as well as the benefits that come with delayed marriage should be conducted.

Land distribution programme as a government policy does not adequately cater for land ownership by women. The bottlenecks are the traditional system of land ownership and control being centred on the man. Even in the matrilineal system, where the woman is said to own the land, the decision making and control of the land is entrusted in the brothers of the mother. In the patrilineal system, land ownership and control is through the man and his male relatives while the girl child and her mother are owned by the male relations and have no control over the land. When the father dies, the girl child always loses this land to the male inheritors. A solution to this would be to finalize the inheritance act, which would protect the girl child against such vulnerabilities. In addition, there is need to empower both men and women in terms of “Will” preparation so that inheritance issues are clarified by the parents of the child before they pass away.

4.2.2 BUDGETING AND FINANCING

The national budgeting process is not engendered. This process has not subscribed fully to gender budgeting despite the development of gender budgeting guidelines and some key personnel in the Ministry of Finance, Gender and other line Ministries being trained in gender budgeting processes. The major bottleneck is the lack of understanding of the importance and appreciation of the value of gender mainstreaming and gender budgeting. In addition, the implementation is compromised in line ministries because of the emergent focus and prioritization of interventions as well as the reprioritization of interventions after Parliament has passed the budget.

The current amount of resources allocated to gender services is also not seen to be adequate. This has affected the expansion GBV Victim Support Units, awareness campaigns on gender sensitive issues, accessibility to youth friendly services on reproductive health as facilities cannot be expanded to reach many areas especially in the rural. Many other activities and initiatives that affect the delivery of gender services have been affected by low funding, like mother group initiatives, menstrual hygiene management, and the like.

A solution to this could be to ring fence funding and ensure that money is spent on the engendered plans. Each sector ministry should have a programme division that will be responsible for the development, implementation as well as M&E of any programme activities. This should be headed by a professional at the level of either P5 or P4 who will be supporting the P.S. in programming issues. This will ensure effective and efficient programming including monitoring and evaluation and budgeting for interventions. As a result there will be proper accountability of resources and results thus opening up to more donor support.

With this block financing on gender, spending on gender will increase with better and more tangible results being reported and recorded. This could be used as a resource mobilization tool for the sector both internationally and locally. Recognising that the Government of Malawi’s resource inflow is limited, the


country’s financing of development activities, including gender are mostly donor funded (i.e. approx. 40% Direct Budget Support and most project specific interventions are donor funded), therefore gender as a sector requires a robust resource mobilization strategy that will ensure that the national gender agenda is adequately financed. The impending Joint Sector Strategy for Gender, Children, Youth and Sports will provide a framework through which such a strategy can be developed and implemented.

4.2.3 SERVICE DELIVERY

4.2.3.1 Capacity

There are commendable efforts underway by both government and stakeholders but some bottlenecks still persists thereby affecting timely implementation and adequate coverage. Low capacity (both in terms of number and ability) in service delivery is affecting progress on the achievement of the Gender Agenda. This low capacity is being characterized by inadequate human resource, insufficient appropriate skills, minimal and adhoc availability of financial resources among other key factors.

This low service delivery capacity has resulted into poor enforcement of policies and legislation, inadequate coverage and failure to upscale performing interventions (i.e. the healthy sanitary project that is being implemented in only two districts by FAWEMA), poor data management, and weak coordination mechanism for the gender machinery. In 2011, the White Paper on Gender Machinery in Malawi identified the fragmentation of the national gender machinery as a key causal factor for capacity challenges in implementing agencies.

The solution to this problem is the strengthening of the national gender machinery. The Directorate of Gender, in the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Welfare, which is a coordination and secretarial hub for gender issues in Malawi, should be enhanced through direct support for speedy and effective Policy formulation, Resource Mobilization, Coordination, Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation. Filling of existing vacancies and training of all officers to effectively champion gender programming and

Girls’ Attainment in Basic Literacy and Education (GABLE)

USAID/Malawi Government Girls’ Attainment in Basic Literacy and Education (GABLE) project (1991 – 2004) promoted girls’ participation in schooling within a broader systemic effort to address quality and efficiency in the Malawi primary education system. GABLE aimed at promoting girls’ persistence and success in primary education. Project activities focused on improving the relevance of primary education for girls hence achieved the following: (i) strengthened the primary school curriculum to make it more gender sensitive through the Gender Appropriate Curriculum (GAC) Unit; (ii) established a girls’ scholarship fund for eligible secondary school girls; and (iii) launched the Social Mobilization Campaign (SMC) that increased community awareness of the value of girls’ education, (iv) supported a small school construction program.

In GABLE community participation specifically encouraged changed attitudes on the education of girls at the community level implemented by the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs and Community Services (MOWCACS). The social idea emphasized in the SMC was that primary education is useful to individual girls as well as to society. The target group reached in the campaign was made up of parents, peers, teachers, initiation counsellors, school committee members, and local leaders.

The GABLE project overall had a number of noteworthy achievements, including dramatic increase in primary enrolments and persistence of girls. From the first year of GABLE implementation through 1996, girls’ enrolments at the primary level almost doubled and girls’ enrolments as compared with boys’ rose from 45 percent to 47 percent. Of particular importance, in a country where girls often leave school before completing the primary standards, is that girls’ enrolment as a proportion of standard 8 enrolments increased since 1991 from 36 percent to 39 percent by 1996. GABLE, of course, did not achieve these increases alone, but by working closely with the Government of Malawi to support its programs to expand access, equity, and quality.

‘The combination of policy initiatives, project activities at the school and classroom level, and social mobilization have been particularly successful and GABLE is often cited as one of USAID’s most successful projects.’ (Uzma Anzar etal p12)

Despite the GABLE initiative having manifested tangible results on improved girls’ enrolment and retention in schools, the government did not continue it after the donor funding dried up.

implementation at all levels is very crucial. Additionally, Special emphasis should be placed on ensuring that the National Gender Machinery has sufficient autonomy and status in government and other stakeholders’ policies unlike the current scenario where the machinery commands very little influence areas of budgeting and policy.

4.2.3.2 Attitudes, Perceptions and Practices

Despite good gender equality promoting policies and programs, government and traditional institutions remain unsupportive due to attitude of duty bearers. The attitude of teachers at school, prosecuting units do not give priority to GBV victims and thus discourages reporting, unfriendly SRH services to adolescent girls by some providers in health facilities, Custodians of culture do not support victims to report abuse/


violence as well as dealing with cases, soft penalties for offenders. Vulnerable girls and women such as those with disabilities are further disadvantaged due to negative community perceptions. This is compounded with high female illiteracy rates. Gender stereotypes remain strong despite initiatives advocating for positive changes to gender roles. Masculinity and femininity seems to be manifested in certain expected ways, some of which negative, beyond which there is no room. For example, it seems justified or ‘manly’ for a married man to beat his wife. Gender violence, that of men against women, seems more pronounced in patrilineal societies, despite higher education in some of them e.g. Rumphi District. In some communities, despite unlimited access to education, the girl child is encouraged to marry after attaining puberty. Higher education is seen as an endeavour suitable for men.

The solution is to scale up existing effective interventions. Sensitize, empower and engage dialogue among community members, community/traditional leadership and other duty bearers, including men, on gender issues that enhance girls’ rights through elimination/modification of harmful socio-cultural factors, elimination of GBV through enhanced reporting. Sustainable interventions that ensure community ownership like the Society Tackling Aids through Rights (STAR) circles, community based population education, social mobilization campaigns will be scaled up to every village and documentation to demonstrate impact of interventions enhanced.

4.2.4 SERVICE UTILIZATION

Attitudes, perceptions and practices that put low value on women and girls persist. Gender stereotypes that put low value on women and girls are inherent in traditional practices throughout all tribes in the country. Low self esteem among girls, village women and women in leadership/decision making position also contributes to the low value placed on females.

Programs therefore must be tailored at addressing bottlenecks in service utilization by the girls and the parents and community as a whole targeting selected OVCs and every village in order to improve girls’ primary and secondary enrolment and completion. Interventions should first of all expand girl’s access to resources such as education scholarships targeting OVCs, (e.g. AGSP, GABLE, GESI) Sexual and Reproductive Health services that prevents unwanted pregnancies.

Secondly, initiatives to empower the individual girl like girls’ education movement and networks, and mentoring (through mother groups) are also critical to build girl’s self efficacy. The second fundamental strategy is enabling community-led dialogues for revision of gender stereotypes by all stakeholders in the community through a community mobilization campaign including STAR approach and role model utilization. STAR circles in every village will enhance dialogue on gender/HIV/AIDs/rights (including youth friendly sexual and reproductive health issues) vis-à-vis socio-cultural factors as well as be reporting space for GBV that will work closely with VSU, health providers and schools. This strategy is also in line with the recently developed communication strategy for girls’ education which seeks to address some of the social cultural factors negatively affecting girls’ education. In order to garner women’s agency toward girls’ education, Village Savings and Loan (VSL) scheme will be established to improve women economic empowerment. Furthermore, due to poor implementation of policies due to lack of knowledge and a general negativity towards such policies, embarking on a district and community level Advocacy Campaign for effective policy implementation through sensitization and strengthened partnerships to ensure implementation at school, community and district level.

4.2.4.1 Management Information System

One of the bottlenecks for interventions targeting the attainment of gender related MGDs (2, 3 and 5) hinges on how data is generated, stored and used for decision making. It has been observed that data for gender-based violence (GBV), for example, is not readily available and in other circumstances not disaggregated. This is affecting informed decision making by government and stakeholders. Tools are available for generating, reporting and making use of data, but the tools are disjointed and follow vertical programmatic approach rather than a holistic system approach. The GBV registers, for example, are not


fully utilized because different stakeholders are using different GBV case registers as per their key areas of focus. This has resulted in poor coordination and reporting mechanism on GBV.

One solution to the problem is to develop a standard GBV monitoring and evaluation framework for reporting on activities. Capitalizing on the framework, government can harmonize coordination mechanism and reporting structure but also create a data base for all gender related issues in the country. Stakeholders should also ensure that the reporting frameworks are user friendly to ensure increased access to information on GBV (both victims and perpetrators)

4.2.4.2 Lack of Awareness

A bottleneck analysis on current interventions has shown that the acceleration of the interventions is hampered by lack of awareness. For these interventions awareness raising is an essential service to stimulate uptake. The Mother Group Initiative, for example, lacks visibility to benefit the girls in and out of school. Similarly, the gender related laws are not well disseminated and as such has affected reporting of cases and enforcement of laws.

It has further been observed that awareness campaign days such as the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence and Rural Women’s Day generate a lot of publicity and is a good advocacy platform. A bottleneck has been that these national awareness campaigns are highly politicized; used by politicians presiding over the functions to advance their political agenda. Insufficient awareness has been observed as a stumbling block to disability programmes. Inadequate use of people with disabilities who are achievers as role models is failing to motivate people with disabilities and girls to work hard in school. Role modeling is a bottleneck not only to girls with disability but all girls. Many institutions involved in the provision of GBV mitigation are seen to be offering unfriendly services – the Police and Community-level GBV Victim Units, the local schools, etc.

A solution should be to sensitize communities on gender issues specifically availability of victim support units, reporting of all GBV and harassment cases, identification of role models and mentors in communities and girls rights.

4.3 SETTING PRIORITIES

The priority setting for the identified solutions should be based on the short, medium and long term criterion. The short term interventions will be all those activities whose impact can be felt by 2015 and within the life span on the MDGs. The medium term interventions will be all those which can be achieved and their impact seen within the next 5 years, including post 2015. The long term interventions will be all those activities whose impact will be seen after 5 years from the start of implementation.

For purposes of the MDG Acceleration Framework (MAF), the short term interventions will be given priority and focused upon immediately. It is suggested that because all the interventions (i.e. short, medium and long term) will have an impact on the achievement of the lagging MDGs by 2015, their implementation should be started in parallel (if feasible) and continue until they are fully implemented. Results for the short term interventions will be visible within the time frame of the MDGs (by 2015) and the impact of the medium and longer term interventions will be seen post 2015.

4.4 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE GENDER ROAD MAP / STRATEGIC PLAN

The Ministry of Gender does not focus purely on women or the girl child. The ministry focuses on the roles of men, women, boys and girls, and as a result, the Joint Sector Strategy for Gender, Children, Youth and Sports has 5 Outcome Areas, namely;

Outcome 1: Children, youth and women protected by the policy and legal environmentOutcome 2: Children, Youth and women (including sportsmen/women) equitably access, control

and utilize social and economic servicesOutcome 3: Children, youth and women participate effectively in decision making processes


Outcome 4: Violence against children, youth and women reducedOutcome 5: Sector programs for children, youth and women effectively coordinated

The strategic plan answers some of the bottlenecks identified in the MAF because it has provided a strategic forum for the coordination of gender, where the issues and shortfalls identified by the MAF above can be addressed through the strategic working group. This will greatly improve the coordination of the gender agenda.

However, if the bottlenecks that have been identified in the MAF are not resolved, the gender road map as detailed in Joint Sector Strategy paper will not be implemented successfully. All of the areas addressed by the Road map above have been identified in the MAF as potential areas of improvement. The implication is therefore that if properly carried out, the MAF will contribute to and will fast track the achievement of the outcomes in the Joint Sector Strategy for Gender, Children, Youth and Sports.


CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This paper has provided background information regarding the performance of gender equality and women empowerment indicators since the launch of the MDGs in the year 2000. Contextual drivers, logical linkages, interventions, policy and implementation gaps, bottlenecks and solutions have been analysed in order to identify interventions that can accelerate progress towards the achievement of MDG 3 and the other lagging MDGs by the year 2015. Based on findings, key issues and bottlenecks identified in the paper, there are evident policy, legal and programming bottlenecks that need to be resolved if the lagging MDGs are to be achieved by 2015 and have multiplier effects on the other on-track MDGs.

The analysis, based on bottlenecks and their solutions, shows that the girl child (below 19 years) is an important entry point for accelerating the achievement of the lagging MDGs. In addition, the analysis has shown and concluded that interventions should prioritise the education of the girl child, as this will have multiplier and lasting effects on all other aspects of the girl’s life. However, there are gaps related to legal and policy frameworks; data management systems; service delivery systems and service utilization systems that would constrain interventions meant to focus on the girl child. In areas where gender responsive policies and laws have been developed and enacted, dissemination, implementation and enforcement have been limited. Furthermore, conservative cultural and religious values can severely limit and hinder the extent to which such a goal can be achieved.

In addition to the gaps, key bottlenecks that hinder ongoing interventions include socio-cultural and economic factors that limit girls’ access to education and other key services such as SRH, political and economic empowerment. The enablers are not conducive to facilitate girls’ participation in development processes. There are infrastructural and human capacity constraints. The capacity limitations affecting the national gender machinery as well as the resource inadequacies hinder the effectiveness of gender responsive services the girl child has access to. Compounding all this is the lack of a an update strategic national policy that would provide the nation with guidance on how to address gender issues. The legal framework is still conservative and unknown to the beneficiaries as well as the general public.

Key solutions suggested for the identified gaps and bottlenecks include the strengthening of the national gender machinery; creation of a gender M&E system to monitor and evaluate the impact of all gender related interventions through establishment of a national gender management information system (GMIS); domestication of international/regional treaties; introduction of policy incentives; enforcement of child protection and human rights-based policies and laws; ring fence and block financing of gender agenda; and engagement of custodians of cultural and religious practices. In order to ensure that GBV is curtailed, there should be a standard monitoring and evaluation mechanism as well as comprehensive communication strategy. All these solutions should be planned and implemented within the National Gender Strategic Plan.

Beyond the improvement of the enablers, this background paper also proposes that to ensure gender equality and women’s empowerment in the long run might it may be pertinent to establish compulsory primary and secondary education. For this to be possible, however, huge resources would have to be mobilized so as to build more schools, train more teachers, and build more access roads to make these schooling facilities accessible to every child in the communities. In view of the difficult economic situation in the country and globally, a robust resource mobilization strategy would be required to source funds both locally and internationally to finance appropriate interventions.


To this end, this paper recommends that the Malawi MDG Acceleration Framework should focus its priority on the girl child and the interventions should cover the period from primary to tertiary education. The other sectoral interventions should be mainstreamed into formal education sector as well as vocational training for school drop-outs or secondary school graduates. However, education on its own will not bring about the required empowerment in the girl child. Other sectoral interventions will be required to be implemented parallel to the education services. Specifically, these will include SRH, political and economic empowerment services that should be integrated in the school curriculum at primary, secondary and tertiary education levels wherever possible. Otherwise the Girl Child could also receive these services alongside the education.


REFERENCES

International Monetary Fund. Malawi Country Report, 2002Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. Comprehensive Review of Malawi Poverty Reduction StrategyMinistry of Economic Planning and Development. Malawi Growth and Development Strategy 2006-2011Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy 2002-2005Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. MDG Reports 2003-2011Ministry of Finance. Output-based Budgets, 2001-2011Ministry of Health – RHU. National Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Policy, 2009.Ministry of Health – RHU. Road Map for Accelerating the reduction of Maternal and Neonatal Morbidity and Mortality in Malawi, 2007 and 2011(unofficial, under review).Ministry of Health - RHU, UNFPA, WHO, UNICEF, AMDD. EmONC Needs Assessment Report, 2010.National Statistical Office. Demographic Health Surveys, 2000, 2004 and 2010National Statistical Office. Intergrated Household Survey, 2004, 2011National Statistical Office. National Census 2008National Statistical Office. Welfare Monitory Survey, 2009National Statistical Office and UNICEF. Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2006UNDP. Evaluation of the Millennium Villages Project, 2010UNDP. Human Development Report 2001 and 2011UNDP. MAF Acceleration Framework, 2010


APPENDIX ON FIGURES

Table1:SADCIndicatorsongender

Gender Inequality

Index

Labour Force Participation

Rate Adolescent

Fertility Rate Seats in

Parliament Contraceptive

Prevarence Rate

Mauritius 0.353 40.8 35.4 18.8 76

Namibia 0.466 51.1 74.4 25 55

South Africa 0.49 47 59.2 42.7 60

Botswana 0.507 72.3 52.1 7.9 53

Lesotho 0.532 70.8 73.5 22.9 47

Swaziland 0.56 53.1 83.9 21.9 51

Zimbabwe 0.583 60 64.6 17.9 65

Tanzania 0.59 86.3 130.4 36 26

Malawi 0.594 75 119.2 22 41

Mozambique 0.602 84.8 149.2 39.2 16

Zambia 0.627 59.5 146.8 14 41

DRC 0.71 56.5 201.4 9.4 21

Seychelles 51.3 23.5

Madagascar 84.2 134.3 12.1 40

Angola 74.5 171.1 38 6

Table 2: SADC Indicators on gender

Figure1:GirlsurvivalratesStd6to8

Source: MoE, EMIS 2006-2011

Figure 10 : Girl survival rates Std 6 to 8


Figure1:Violenceagainstwomenbyage

Source: DHS 2010

Figure 11: Violence against women by age


APPENDIX ON GIRL CHILD CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

As illustrated in the figure below, the Girl Child will be at centre of the MAF. As the girl child gets to school going age, the enablers (policy and legal frameworks as well as cultural and religious values and practices) should protect and support the Girl Child to pursue her schooling from primary to tertiary education without barriers. This will require transformation of the policies, legal instruments, cultural and religious norms in line with the global change management agenda. This transformation will be effected in stages through short-term, medium-term and long-term interventions.

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