Making Voices of Marginalized Groups (Youth, Girls and Women, Elderly, People with Albinism and Refugees) Heard and Count in Malawi
Executive Summary:
LNOB Malawi consortium works in collaboration with relevant stakeholders to implement the “Making Voices of Marginalized Groups (Youth, Girls and Women, Elderly, People with Albinism and Refugees) Heard and Count in Malawi” project in the six districts of Mzimba, Kasungu, Mangochi, Rumphi, Neno and Nkhotakota through the use of gender and age disaggregated data. Through this project, the country coalition intends to demand accountability to support better and gender sensitive decisions and influence policy outcomes for the empowerment of youth, women, and other marginalized groups. This project will focus on generating data and building the capacities of girls, women and youth, in decision making structures/systems, rights based media and civil society organisations to demand an inclusive and equitable society where they can safely exercise their rights. The project also intends to build the capacities of government institutions, who are the ‘duty-bearers,’ to meet their obligations to supply better, more accountable and gender and youth sensitive Social protection services and governance towards the attainment of the SDG 10.
In addition, the project will track participation and inclusion/segregation of youth (girls and boys) and women in two major social protection programs from the government of Malawi, namely, Affordable inputs program (AIP) and the Social Cash Transfer Programmes (SCTP). Both these programs take up significant proportions of the national budget as well as donor funds in Malawi and are key to the countries SDG attainment progress. The project team works closely with civil society organisations to generate and use citizen-generated data (CGD) which is a foundation for equitable and open societies. The project also works closely with media to enable the marginalised groups to hold governments accountable, make information meaningful and drive social and political change for the better, while leaving no one behind.
The project will ensure data driven and evidence-based approach to enhance participation and empowerment of women and youth in district level interventions. In addition, sharing of data will ensure that civil society actors and infomediaries work together with local authorities to improve the translation and use of data (disaggregated by gender, age, and other social criteria e.g., disability, sexual orientation, economic status and whether they are beneficiaries of the AIP and/or the SCT programs etc.) Ultimately, these efforts will ensure that the participation and inclusion of women and youth (male and female) in the SCTP and AIP programs is enhanced equitably and that the two programs are more transparent and accountable in their dealings.
Moreover, data generated by the project will be contributed to the Citizen Data Hub, where it will complement the data provided by Plan Malawi, Centre for Social Accountability & Transparency (CSAT), Do for Children, CARE Malawi, National Planning Commission, and MANEPO; and address a gap in data for the project target districts. This will both allow for comparative analysis with other social economic inclusion, accountability data and contribute to a growing public good.
| Project duration |
Grant period: March – November 2022
Project period: 5 March 2022 – 31 Nov 2022 |
| Desired goals and outcome |
- Enhance capacities of national CSOs and local civil society for a meaningful engagement in an evidence-driven SDG monitoring, review and implementation
- Strengthen existing participatory spaces and feedback mechanisms that give voice and agency to marginalised communities
- Close knowledge gaps on drivers of marginalisation via community-driven data generation
- Influence the revision and/or generation of meaningful policies and services to address the situation of marginalised groups
- Foster an enabling political environment towards a more evidence-driven, inclusive and participatory SDG implementation, based on the increased recognition and use of community-driven data
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| Research focus topic(s) |
- Tracking participation and inclusion of youth, girls women, youth and other vulnerable groups in leadership and governance structures at community, district and national level. The structures include DDCs (District Development Committee), ADC (Area Development Committee), VDCs (Village Development Committees) and CSSCs (Community Social Support Committees).
- Tracking participation of beneficiaries including, youth (girls and boys), women and children in important government social protection programs namely, AIP (Affordable Inputs Programme) and SCT (Social Cash Transfer).
- Tracking intervention that respond to SDG 10.
(The above points are in line with SDG 10) |
| SDGs/indicators covered |
SDG10 (reduce inequality within and among countries)
Indicators for Target 10.2, 10.4 by 2030 empower and promote the social economic and political inclusion of all irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic status.
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| Data generation methodology(s) |
The project will utilise citizen generated data through focus group discussions, key informant interviews, community scorecard, interface meetings, literature review, household survey and secondary data from official reports from government MDAs. |
| Marginalised groups targeted |
The project will focus on 10 marginalised groups namely, girls, boys, young women, persons with disabilities and with Albinism, people living with HIV, elderly persons, some female-headed households, street connected children, LGBTQI, individuals living in hard-to-reach areas, and those living in extreme poverty, increasing the vulnerability factor exponentially. These will be from the communities targeted in the 6 districts and their actual (Disaggregated figures) figures will be established through the project implementation process, but 200 households will be targeted per district. |
| Research locations |
12 villages constituents, 6 TAs (traditional authority) areas in each of the 6 districts: Rumphi and Mzimba in the Northern; Kasungu and Nkhotakota in the Central; Neno and Mangochi in the South and Eastern regions. |
| Number of people reached per research location |
The project will reach out to 20 households of 4.5 people per household coming to at least 200 participants in each of the districts making a total of 1200 participants. |
| Total number of people reached |
Over 5400 people will be reached at 4.5 x 1200 households. |
| Number of trainings/capacity building workshops |
Six training workshops on community driven data will be conducted, 1 in each of the 6 districts. |
| Number of dialogues with local authorities / decision makers |
6 dialogues session will be conducted with Local authorities 1 at each of the 6 targeted districts. |
| Number of dialogues with national authorities |
Two dialogues sessions will be conducted with national authorities involving Ministries of Local Government, Agriculture, Gender and Health |
| Number of policy/service recommendations to be produced |
Two policy briefs will be produced one on the SCT (Social cash transfer program) and one on the AIP (affordable inputs program). |
| Lead implementer |
Plan International Malawi |
| Other partner organisations |
- Care Malawi
- Centre for Social Accountability & Transparency (CSAT)
- Do for Children
- Malawi Network of Older Person’s Organisations (MANEPO)
- National Planning Commission of Malawi
- Plan International Malawi
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The ongoing project in Malawi is supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung.
Our Target SDGS in Malawi
