Reality of Aid Africa Network

For the civil society organizations (CSOs) to engage in the development processes in a sustained and effective manner, the best initiative is likely to fail in the absence of an appropriate and enabling environment. [...] In terms of accountability, CSOs at all levels are supposed to be reporting to the NGO board and also that this is done to donors and different constituencies through registration to the NGO Board and the CONGOMA, with annual membership renewal as an automatic accountability measure/obligation subject to full compliance among which is the submission of annual narrative and audit reports to the NGO. [...] This is the spirit championed and advocated for the CSOs and NGOs' obligations in Malawi, for them all to register with CONGOMA, as well as the NGO Board aside from being registered with the Government in the different forms and types of registration. [...] However it was underscored that, to a larger extent, a lot of this information is still privileged to the providers and not as accessible to Government through the efforts at instituting and supporting the agreed benchmarks in the context of the Development Cooperation Strategy, International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) standards and the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiatives. [...] The presence of the NGO Act (2001) also provides for the requirement for the NGOs to be duly registered as well as comply to different policies and regulations through the Council for NGOs in Malawi and ultimately with the NGO Board of Malawi.