Malawi’s Social Support MIS and ICT Assessment

The Government of Malawi considers Social Protection as a critical tool in the fight against poverty, resilience building and the promotion of human development and economic growth. As guided by its National Social Support Policy (NSSP), the Malawi National Social Support Programme (MNSSP II) was launched to operationalize the policy in period of 2018-2023. The MNSSP II recognises that the needs of poor and vulnerable households change over the course of the lifecycle and during times of shocks. It recognises the need for all social support programmes to coordinate and jointly work towards providing consumption support and building resilient livelihoods, throughout the life cycle. The review of the first MNSSP identified that there are challenges in the integration of operations and management of programmes. Among the challenges stands the programmes’ Management Information Systems (MIS) fragmentation. Each programme uses a different MIS, developed in isolation from the broader sector and other systems, and with different levels of development and investments. The existing systems do not provide managers and implementers with a comprehensive and accessible platform to support decision making, monitoring, nor transparency of operations. A comprehensive, nationally owned, developed, implemented and operated MIS provides for a more sustainable and robust solution, and allows for better control and management of the sector by government. There are many strategies that can be used to achieve these purposes, depending on existing capacities and desired functionalities of the MIS. The overall process usually needs years to be properly implemented, and requires steady maintenance and updating once it is roll-out. In this sense, the Government of Malawi is interested in exploring potential strategies for the development of an integrated MIS solution for the sector in the medium-long term. The project lays the groundwork to start the process of thinking of a strategic development plan for a comprehensive and integrated MIS for the social support sector. The project supports the development of an assessment report of the current design, state of implementation of MIS in the social protection sector in Malawi. It also aims at providing a broad assessment of the national capacities and infrastructure in ICT. Among the study outputs are recommendations for the improvement of existing short-term solutions, and potential strategies for the medium-long-term development and implementation of a modern, comprehensive, integrated and secure MIS. Data collection for the assessment uses secondary data sources, such as literature reviews, and also primary sources by engaging directly key stakeholders in bilateral meetings, broad-based consultations and field visits. The project runs from December 2019, to May 2020, led by the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development and the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare. Technical Backstopping: The Social Protection Technical Advisor based in Lusaka, and the Regional Social Protection Specialist in Pretoria are the technical backstoppers of the project. The review of the project was done by the Social Protection Technical Officer based in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Project symbol

MWI/19/02/IRL

Admin unit

CO-Lusaka

Start date

26/11/2019

End date

31/12/2020

Total allocation

39033

Total expenditure

Status

Closed

39033

Development Partners

Ireland, Irish Aid

Country/Countries

Malawi

Outcomes

Outcome 8: Comprehensive and sustainable social protection for all