Rights Based Programming in Malawi

RIGHTS BASED PROGRAMMING IN MALAWI: THE CASE OF ACTIONAID INTERNATIONAL MALAWI
By Collins Magalasi
In spite of over four decades of political independence, poverty in Malawi remains one of the highest in the world. Since ActionAid opened its operational doors in Malawi in 1991, it has spent millions of pounds providing goods and services to the poor in the country, yet poverty eradication remains an elusive objective (including in development areas that ActionAid was/is working). Reflections and related lessons from practice have led the organisation to resolve to end poverty through rights based approach (RBA).
Implementing RBA in Malawi requires us to be innovative. Despite the fact that there is no single, universally agreed rights based approach, there are basic constituent elements of RBA that we will ensure our programmes incorporate. These include (a) Accountability on the part of the state to fulfil people’s rights and the communities to communicate their needs, (b) empowerment of poor women, girls, boys and girls and ensuring their participation in contributing to, claiming and enjoying civil, economic, social and cultural rights and political development, (c) indivisibility and interdependence of rights whereby no right will be addressed at the cost of another, (d) equality and non-discrimination where there is no exclusion based on gender, ethnicity, age, colour, physical etc differences, yet paying special attention to vulnerable and marginalised groups; and (d) linkage to national and international human rights norms and standards
To ensure that our RBA efforts have great potential as a tool to engage policy makers and public managers in continuous improvement of basic services, we will ensure that we set realistic expectations; engage stakeholders at various level in defining problems and solutions; incorporate capacity building of our staff, partners and government and donor officials about the process; and create systems for eliminating unnecessary barriers and for facilitating innovation.
Implementation of RBA in Malawi does not come without challenges. Care will be taken in implementing RBA because often the approach can be seen very easily as holding the government and duty bearers accountable for results over which they have no control, and this may breed sour relations with the government. Government of Malawi often claims that they do not have enough funds to fulfil all people’s basic needs. To prevent this, we will ensure that our RBA system analysis has data indicating who is responsible for achieving results and listing factors beyond the control of the duty bearers that could affect results. We will also be on the lookout for increased fragmentation of partners because different players – staff, partners and communities alike – have differing requirements, opinions and expectations of development. The history of ActionAid as a direct service delivery relief agency contributes to this. In this vein we will civic educate the communities and partners on the ‘new’ approach that ActionAid is taking. Our staff in the field may also become frustrated with RBA when charged with identifying solutions to problems that they cannot implement due to constraints of imbedded community belief that ActionAid gives them better services than the government. To reach its potential as a tool for continuous improvement, RBA must be used as an incentive for innovation rather than as a punitive measure to staff and poor communities.
In applying rights based approach, ActionAid will transform from usurping of government responsibility of supplying goods and services to the role of facilitating the relationship between authorities and the communities to realise sustainable development priorities.
To do this, in our day-to-day work in the DAs and through partners, we will facilitate programmes that lead to government, partners and communities understanding human rights and their subsequent duties and responsibilities to respect, protect and fulfil them (through civic education, technical capacity building and resource transfer). We will also work with vulnerable, marginalised and women communities to ensure that they recognise the responsibilities of government and have the capacity to negotiate with the duty bearers to provide services and freedoms in an equitable and transparent manner. The objective of this rights based approach is to move beyond meeting specific needs to reinforcing local structures and capacities to meet human rights standards over time, as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Additionally, we will work with affected communities to monitor process and results of government and duty bearers meeting of development priorities. We will monitor donors too in their ensuring that government has the means and freedom to realise the development priorities provided by human rights.
Rights-based approaches to development emphasize non-discrimination, attention to vulnerability and empowerment. Women and girls are among the first victims of discrimination. They are the most vulnerable and the least empowered in many of our societies. As such all our work will be designed, implemented and evaluated with the lens of women and girls. At national level, we will measure our progress against standards set in the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and monitoring standards of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Women and girls’ concerns will be reflected in the conceptualization, implementation and evaluation of human rights policies, strategic planning, and the setting of priorities and objectives. Our programme work will thus focus comprehensively on availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability of needed services for all poor and vulnerable communities.
On the government front, our national programmes will pursue rights based approach in our relationship with the government and other duty bearers, by working on results based accountability of the government. In this case the objective will be to ensure that the government facilitates collaboration among stakeholders on common goals; empowers frontline workers; reduces regulation – resulting in greater local decision making; engages the public in defining solutions to society’s problems; demonstrates the results of public investments, thereby increasing public trust in the government, and budgets for results.

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Collins Magalasi