• Public sector & service delivery
• Education
• Health
• Service delivery management
• Privatisation of services
• Non-state provision
• Civil service reform
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Public sector & service delivery

The government of Malawi and its development partners formulated the Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy (MPRS) in 2002. The aim of the Strategy is to reduce poverty through economic growth and empowerment of the poor. The first review of MPRS brought to light a number of challenging issues during the implementation period.

The report focuses on assessing inputs, outputs and outcomes of the implementation of the strategy. It also analyses expenditure by pillars, protected pro-poor activities and functional analysis of government expenditure pattern. The outputs and outcomes analysis is presented in the rest of the report by comparing the planned activities and their targets outlined in the strategy to the actual progress and targets achieved over the second year of the implementation period.

Some of the major highlights of the report are:

• the macroeconomic performance remains far from achieving macroeconomic stability as targeted in MPRS
• the macroeconomic targets that were set both in MPRS and the 2003/04 budget were not achieved as manifested by high inflation rate, sluggish Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, increased domestic debt and continued depreciation of the Kwacha
• the overall 2003/04 budget for MPRS as a percentage of total expenditure was less than what was programmed in the MPRS and budget
• government increased spending without proportionally corresponding increase in MPRS activities
• the economy has failed to achieve the annual economic growth of 6 percent required to have an impact on poverty reduction.

The review concludes that lead institutions in the implementation of MPRS continue to face critical challenges that hamper implementation of the strategy. These challenges include:

• lack of financial and human resources
• HIV/AIDS and non-prioritization of activities
• and non functional monitoring and evaluation systems at sector level.

The report therefore recommends that:

• available limited funds should be prioritised towards activities that have direct impact in stimulating economic growth and poverty reduction
• the poor should be given a very active role in all activities
• institutions should be encouraged to mainstream HIV/AIDS in their activities.

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