The Norwegian Support to Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality in Malawi Mapping of actors and priority issues Mapping of actors and priority issues

Executive Summary This document is a report of a review to appraise the current situation regarding the work onwomen’s and gender issues in Malawi. Commissioned by the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Malawi(RNE), the review was done between February and March 2010 by Bodil Maal, senior genderadviser from Norad and Hestern Banda1, a Malawian consultant. Based on the recommendations ofthis review, the RNE will make decisions concerning its focus and priorities for its support in Malawi.The review is the first step in a process of exploring ways in which the Embassy could work onwomen’s rights and gender equality (WRGE) in Malawi, and how to raise the issue to a higher levelon the political agenda. Malawi is a highly patriarchal society where women’s rights are weak and women score low on allthe development indicators. Indicators like the maternal mortality rate and HIV/AIDS put women inMalawi among the worse off in the world. The risk of dying as a result of being pregnant is 1 in 7,compared to 1 in 3800 for women in the developed world. The difficult situation for women impliesthe need for high efforts in the field of women’s rights and gender equality. However, thedevelopment partners, civil society, and government admit that efforts are fragmented and that theMinistry of Gender, Children and Community Development has institutional challenges in fulfillingthe mandate of being the overall coordinator, and in providing policy guidance in this work. RNE in Malawi is one of the seven pilot embassies for work on Women’s Rights and GenderEquality. In 2007/2008 fifty nine percent (59%) of the Embassy’s portfolio, according to OECD2, hadwomen’s rights and gender equality as a goal. This was one of the highest percentages obtained byNorwegian embassies in Africa. Having the status of a pilot embassy would imply closer follow-upand support, both technical and financial, from MFA/Norad. RNE has been central in providing support to the government and civil society organisations ongender issues in Malawi. According to the Malawi Aid Atlas, Norway is now the only bilateral donorleft, along with Iceland, supporting Gender, Youth and Sports Development, which is defined as oneof 16 sectors of ODA support by the GoM. The Review Team (RT) found that development partners, civil society organisations, governmentand Malawian politicians view Norway as a central player on gender issues in Malawi. In thediscussions with the different groups of stakeholders, several suggestions on priority areas forstrategic, effective, and more focused support to WRGE were raised. The recommendations beloware based on these suggestions. The RT has tried to single out issues considered as central to eachof the groups of stakeholders, as presented below.