Scotland Malawi Partnership submission to the UK Parliament’s International Development Committee inquiry on “Department for International Development Annual Report and Accounts 2013-14”

8th December 2014

Executive Summary:

The Scotland Malawi Partnership (SMP) is the independent, non-governmental apolitical umbrella agency supporting, coordinating and representing Scotland’s civic links with Malawi.  In this submission the SMP notes a lack of clear, consistent and easily available data on DFID’s total Official Development Assistance (ODA) spend in Malawi and encourages greater clarity, transparency and accessibility in the future.  With the information available, the SMP notes with serious concern the suggestion in the 2013-14 DFID Annual Report that Her Majesty’s Government’s (HMG’s) 2014-15 ODA spend in Malawi could be less than half what it was in 2012-13.  The SMP reminds HMG of its public commitment to ensuring the move away from General Budget Support as a modality of aid assistance would not be used as a pre-text to reduce the bottom-line ODA commitment to Malawi, and gives strong encouragement that this important commitment is maintained.  Finally, the SMP uses this submission to highlight the economic impact in Malawi of the suspension of budget support and calls for HMG to make clear what standards must be reached by the Government of Malawi for such support to be re-started, and offer all possible capacity building and mutual assistance to help the Government of Malawi reach these objective standards of good governance.

1              The Scotland Malawi Partnership:

1.1              The Scotland Malawi Partnership (SMP) is the national umbrella body representing Scotland’s many civil society links with Malawi.  It exists to inspire the people and organisations of Scotland to be involved with Malawi in an informed, coordinated and effective way for the benefit of both nations.  

1.2              The SMP is underpinned by a historic bilateral civil society relationship based not on 'donors' and 'recipients' but on long-standing, mutually-beneficial community to community, family to family and people to people links.  It is a relationship built on trust and mutual respect.  This is a new and innovative mode of international development and we believe it is powerful force for change.  

1.3  More than 94,000 Scots and 198,000 Malawians are actively involved in this unique bilateral relationship each year, contributing in excess of £40 million, and directly benefitting more than 300,000 Scots and 2 million Malawians a year[1].   46% of Scots personally know someone engaged in a Malawi link, and 74% of Scots are in favour of these links (with less than 3% against)[2].

1.4   The special people-to-people links between Scotland and Malawi date back to the travels of Dr David Livingstone, more than 150 years ago today.  The strength and vitality of the contemporary bilateral civic links are often attributed to four innovative features of the relationship: the priority of the relational; the mobilisation of civic society; a reciprocal partnership for development; and government working in synergy with people[3].

1.5              Maintaining this strong principle of “Government in synergy with people”, the SMP is pleased to have a close working relationship with both the UK Government and the Scottish Government as they implement their respective development programmes in Malawi.  We hope to encourage further cooperation and inter-linked working between the efforts of UK civic society and the work of its elected governments so as to maximize overall impact in Malawi. 

2              Access to information

2.1              The Scotland Malawi Partnership welcomes, and values, the opportunity to feed into the process of Parliamentary scrutiny and HMG’s commitment to the freedom of information and open government.  However, we are keen to note the significant difficulties experienced when trying to establish total UK ODA spend in a particular country.

2.2              Searching online one finds successive versions of the same DFID document, each with conflicting facts and figures. For example, the DFID Malawi 2011-15 Operational Plan (which we are told has the latest figures on DFID spend in Malawi) has two versions online: the version updated in May 2012 (which most popular search engines direct one to), and the version updated in June 2013.

2.3              Within the Annual Report there is a very large quantity of data which, to the layman, seems to contradict itself in places.  We are sure this is not the case but rather the result of the complexity of the data, with different figures including different datasets.  However, we note that it is not easy for one to quickly or easily ascertain the total bottom-line UK ODA spend in a particular country and suggest this is a weakness of the programme.

2.4              We note that this fact has also recently been observed in Parliament, with Lord McConnell using the 23 October 2014 House of Lords debate on Malawi to note: “I have to tell the Minister that I found it very difficult to secure these figures from the DfID website, which I found to be a little bit out of date in places.”

2.5              Keen to ensure our submission contained accurate figures, we emailed DFID Malawi directly asking for the data on the 10th November 2014.  All credit to the DFID Malawi team, we received a prompt and courteous reply to this enquiry.  We were told DFID was in the process of preparing these figures (the total DFID spend in Malawi), they noted the complexity involved and said they would send the figures once they had been finalised.  At the time of writing (08 December, the deadline for submissions to this parliamentary inquiry) no figures have yet been sent.

2.6              While recognizing the complexity behind such data, the Scotland Malawi Partnership is disappointed that HMG is not able to easily provide a clear, consistent and unambigious figure as to the bottom-line ODA spend in Malawi. 

3              DFID Bottom-line spend in Malawi

3.1              When DFID first suspended General Budget Support (GBS) as a modality of ODA, we received strong written assurances[4] from DFID that the shift away from GBS would not result in a reduction in the bottom-line commitment to Malawi below that budgeted.  Such assurances have been reiterated on a number of occasions to the SMP since.

3.2              As per Section 2 of this submission, we have found it hard to collate consistent data on DFID’s bottom-line spend in Malawi.  Our best understanding is set out below:

3.3              Assuming the above figures are correct, we note that DFID is forecasting a 2014-15 bottom-line spend in Malawi which is less than half it was in 2012-13, and well below even the most recent (June 2013) revision of the 2011-15 DFID Malawi Operational Plan.

3.4              With the information we have in the 2013-14 DFID Annual Report, it looks like HMG will not be honoring its commitment to ensure the shift away from GBS will not result in a reduction in the bottom-line commitment to Malawi.  We therefore request clarification as to whether HMG has indeed changed its policy on this matter, having previously given strong public assurances that the shift away from GBS would not impact negatively on the people of Malawi with alternative channels used to ensure the overall bilateral commitment was maintained. 

3.5              While we do not dispute the most serious and compelling reasons for DFID to suspend GBS in Malawi, we also recognize the disastrous economic impact this decision has had on a great many Malawians (the Malawian Kwacha has depreciated c200% since the original suspension of GBS) and we call on HMG to:

• Provide clear and consistent information to the Government of Malawi on the necessary conditions which must be met for budget support to be re-started;
• Provide all possible assistance, shared learning  and capacity building, especially in the area of good governance, to assist the Government of Malawi meet such standards; and
• Honor its commitment to maintain its budgeted bottom-line ODA commitment to Malawi through alternative channels of delivery.

4              Closing remarks

4.0              In closing, we are keen to emphasise the great value we place on DFID’s excellent work in and with Malawi and to place on record, with appreciation, the close and constructive relationship we have with both the UK and the Scottish Government’s development programmes in Malawi.  We hope this is a constructive submission which offers every encouragement for DFID to continue its strong work in Malawi, to re-build its partnership with the Government of Malawi, to maintain its overall investment in Malawi, and to work in close cooperation with civic society in Scotland, across the UK and, most importantly, in Malawi.

David Hope-Jones

Principal Officer,

Scotland Malawi Partnership