Malawi

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Situation and Priorities

Social protection situation

Poverty in Malawi is both widespread and severe, with 51 per cent of Malawians living below the national poverty line and 70.6 per cent below the international poverty line of $2.15 per day. About 20 per cent of Malawians are ultra-poor, living below the nationally determined food poverty line. This poverty profile suggests that the vast majority of the population is extremely vulnerable to inflationary spikes, lacking the financial buffers to cushion the effects of inflation and avoid resorting to negative coping mechanisms.  The Government of Malawi has identified social protection as a key instrument in addressing national poverty and vulnerability. Malawi’s social protection system offers limited protection both in terms of quality and coverage of the population. Social assistance programs mostly characterize the social protection sector in Malawi. The flagship social cash transfer programme is currently targeting 10% of labour-constrained ultra-poor households (about 292,190 beneficiary households).  Other programmes include public works (about 451,000 beneficiaries) and school meals programmes (about 3,002,661 beneficiaries) implemented in selected districts.  The social cash transfer programme scaled up in all the 28 districts, which has a fixed 10% coverage threshold, reaches only 10% of ultra-poor labour-constrained households – a very small proportion because 20.5% of the whole population live in ultra-poverty. 

The Malawi Social Support Policy (MSSP) and Malawi National Social Support Programme (MNSSP II) set the building blocks of the country’s strategy in the field of social protection. Adopted in 2018, the Malawi National Social Support Programme II (MNSSPII) provides a wide-ranging framework for the development of the social protection system in the country. Since the inception of the first MNSSP, investment in non-contributory social protection has increased significantly. The Social Cash Transfer programme, piloted in 2006, has seen a large extension of coverage. However, it remains the only social assistance programme that covers all districts. There have been concerted efforts to harmonize the different programmes, but the system remains fragmented and siloed, supported and implemented by different NGOs and international organizations.

The MNSSP II promotes the provision of social support to poor and vulnerable households and individuals, and a need to adapt social support programmes to build resilience and enhance disaster risk reduction. The pillars in the National Social Support Programme II include consumption support, promoting resilient livelihoods through tailored packages based on individual households and community needs, strengthening shock responsive social protection system, promoting linkages for a coherent and effective social protection system and cross cutting strategic actions for systems strengthening.

Contributory social protection schemes are limited in coverage and restricted to the formal sector, 21.3 % of the population are covered by at least one social protection benefit. Social assistance programs are largely financed through foreign aid; public social protection expenditure by percentage of GDP is 4.6%. The ILO has been supporting the government of Malawi to facilitate the review of the National Social Support Policy that expired in 2016 with the aim of expanding its scope to make it more robust, comprehensive, and sustainable.

COVID-19 and other crises

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 has had negative social and economic pressure on the country’s economy putting a strain on the countries’ social protection system, especially health. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has had negative socio-economic effects in both urban and rural populations in Malawi. At national level the COVID 19 pandemic resulted in social, economic, health and vulnerability impacting different sectors of the economy, the populations and leading to more vulnerability among the citizens. This placed demand on the social protection system implying provision of increased social protection programmes. As part of the 2020 National COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan, the Government of Malawi initiated the COVID-19 Urban Cash Initiative (CUCI) to mitigate the adverse impacts of the pandemic on livelihoods and basic consumption for poor populations in the urban cities of Lilongwe, Blantyre, Zomba and Mzuzu. The intervention implemented in the poorest hotspots of the cities targeted 35 percent of each city’s population enrolling over 199,000 households in total. The temporal cash intervention provided a monthly transfer level of MWK35,000 for a total of three months. The design and implementation of the CUCI led by the Government of Malawi was supported by Development Partners including the World Bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KFW), European Union Delegation to Malawi (EU), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), UNICEF, WFP, and ILO. The CUCI was the first major cash transfer program in Malawi to focus on urban areas as such the programme provided an opportunity for learning lessons shaping policy discussions for extension of social protection programmes to the urban poor and shock-responsive interventions.

This has also been compounded by the Russian invasion of Ukraine that triggered a rapid increase in natural gas, fuel and food prices, particularly grains and seed-based oils. In Malawi, this challenging scenario is compounded by the consequences of the tropical cyclones Ana (900,000 affected people) and Gombe that severely hit the southern part of the country, destroying thousands of hectares of crops, forcing the displacement of hundreds of thousands, with losses of goods, damaging of cash crops (sugar, tea) and the crippling of energy production (Malawi Poverty Update – April 2022, WB), this has also caused loss of the sources of economic activities and livelihoods. The government of Malawi has strengthened and leveraged the social protection system to meet heightened food needs during the annual lean season for vulnerable and poor populations.

Government and social partner priorities

The MNSSPII focuses on three thematic pillars:

  1. Consumption Support: The provision of consumption support through timely, predictable and adequate cash and/or in-kind transfers to poor and vulnerable people throughout their life cycles.
  2. Resilient Livelihoods: Promote resilient livelihoods through tailored packages based on individual, household, and community needs.
  3. Shock-Sensitive Social Protection: Reduce vulnerability and enhance the resilience of the population to disasters and socio-economic shocks.
  4. Systems strengthening and promoting linkages for a coherent and effective social protection system

The government of Malawi also want to:

  • Review the national social support policy to expand coverage, inclusiveness, quality  and adequacy of the social protection system in Malawi. 
  • Explore how to  effectively extend coverage of social insurance schemes to the informal economy.
  • Establish the Workers Compensation Fund 
  • Improve the accountability and transparency of social protection programmes.
  • The government of Malawi has identified job creation, wealth creation and food security as part of key instruments to advance national development.
     

ILO Projects and Programmes

Results

The ILO, in collaboration with UNICEF and GIZ, played a key role in the elaboration of the MNSSPII, providing inputs and a multi-level review process to allow stakeholders to reach consensus on key lessons from the first National Socia Support Programme. The ILO also assisted in the development of the national employment injury insurance scheme, which will be launched in 2021.

Funding gaps / Support the ILO

US$ 300,000

Updated national social protection policy and roll out of implementation plan

Impact: N° of persons potentially covered by a strategy - Potentially 8,205,369 million people in the labor force (data from World Bank)
US$ 250,000

Social protection governance and operational capacity strengthened

Impact: N° of persons with better access to social protection (single registry, online application, one stop-service)
US$ 100,000

National strategy for Extending social protection to informal economy

Impact: N° of persons potentially covered by a strategy
US$ 150,000

Culture of social protection and accountability strengthened

Support the ILO

Workspaces

Multimedia

ILO Experts

IMG
Jasmina Papa
Social Protection Specialist
Reagan Kaluluma
National Project Coordinator
IMG
Jean-Louis Lambeau
Social Protection Technical Specialist
IMG
Patience Matandiko
Technical Officer, Social Protection
IMG
Nienke Raap
Technical Officer, Social protection Knowledge Management