Liu Lathu: Significant Change Stories

This 33-page reports sums up three years of work implementing the Liu Lathu Programme in Malawi, which is part of the multi-country Mwananchi Programme designed to help citizens hold their governments to account by strengthening the wide range of groups that can empower and support them. The programme works to help ordinary Malawians raise their voices on issues affecting their lives – this includes battling entrenched issues of poor service delivery, absentee MPs, and embedded cultural issues. Set up by the Overseas Development Institute in 2008, with support from the DFID Governance and Transparency Fund, the programme in Malawi is led by the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN).

The Liu Lathu Programme focuses on exploring innovative approaches to social accountability problems by taking an action research approach, and by encouraging learning by tracking a range of innovative ways in which ordinary citizens can hold their elected representatives accountable. Aligned to this Mwananchi approach, Liu Lathu interventions seek to enhance the ability and capacity of citizens, media, civil society organisations, and elected representatives to make use of evidence-based approaches in engaging with government actors and institutions to promote transparent, responsive, accountable, and effective governance.

One of the key strategies of the Mwananchi programme is to support innovative approaches through grants to project partners. The report offers an overview of each of these projects:

• Tilawirane Domestic Violence project: Initiated by Women Hope for Change, the Tilawirane Domestic Violence works to addresses gender violence, focusing on domestic violence. The focus of the initiative has been in sensitising communities and fostering a clear understanding of violence against women issues, while training key actors in the justice systems at district level to ensure the issues are well understood and that proper procedures are followed in the delivery of justice to women. Along with awareness, the project also provides paralegal services to women and girls. Women’s Hope for Change (WHFC) is a human rights non-governmental organisation formed in 2008 in response to community demands to address gender-based violence which was very rampant in the District.
• Reclaiming Right to Development: This project is designed to increase civil society and community awareness, knowledge, and skills required for reclaiming the right to development and enhancing accountability in the use of public resources in Mchinji district. The intention is to generate more effective participation of communities in decision-making, and to increase community abilities in advocating for policies, laws and practice that contribute to national poverty reduction, further entrenchment of the rights based approaches, and communities' ability to demand accountability from public institutions. The organisation implementing of the programme is the Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), a network of civil society organisations.
• Liu Lakumudzi: This initiative seeks to build the capacity of ordinary citizens to identify pressing development issues and to communicate them to duty bearers. The objective is to foster an informed rural community that has the capacity to monitor development planning. Of particular attention is the need to get the people of TA Malemia participating in the implementation and monitoring of the Local and Constituency Development Funds. Radio is used as a major tool for citizens' engagement with duty bearers in this initiative, and radio listening clubs have been established. Development Communications Trust, the implementing organisation, is a local NGO that specialises in development communication.
• Lathu Mwananchi project on Community Participation in Transparency and Accountability of Local Development Funds & Constituency Development Funds: The project works to empower communities to make a meaningful contribution to the development of their areas. The key to achieving this is for communities to hold elected members and local government accountable for their actions in managing the Local Development Fund (LDF) and the Constituency Development Fund (CDF). The implementing organisation is the Association of Progressive Women (APW).
• Access to Justice for Citizens: The Access to Justice for Citizens project works to complement the judiciary in helping poor people resolve disputes in peaceful, effective, and cost-effective ways. Awareness of rights and government laws is very low in Mwanza because most of Malawi’s laws are conveyed in English, and many people in the district cannot read or write English. Through the project, citizens receive knowledge about the justice system and procedures, and the justice system is sensitised to the needs of citizens. Ultimately, citizens should be able to demand their rights to justice. The implementing organisation, the Centre for Human Rights Education and Advice is a NGO dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights. Inspired by Malawi’s past history of oppression and human rights abuses, CHREAA is committed to combating ignorance of rights and to making justice accessible to marginalised communities. CHREAA is well aware that the daily struggles of ordinary people are often overlooked and it thus envisions a Malawian society that upholds human rights, justice, and rule of law.
• Phalombe Advocacy and Community Empowerment (PACE): The PACE project seeks to enhance, reinforce, provide skills and enlighten traditional, religious and youth leaders in the enforcement of an accountable and transparent delivery of citizen’s developmental rights on the provision of safe and portable water, and an increased interaction and improved relationship among the citizens, elected representatives, District Assembly officials, media, CBOs and all relevant stakeholders in community development initiatives. The project focuses on access to water as an entry point for building the capacities of citizens to express their views and hold government to account for their actions. Umodzi Youth Organization (UYO), the implementing organisation, facilitates the implementation of community development projects in areas of Human Rights, Education, Democracy and Good Governance, Sexual Reproductive Health, HIV/AIDS and Environmental Management in Thyolo, Blantyre, Phalombe, and Mulanje District Councils. It's Vision is a community where the citizens are able to participate, demand transparency, accountability and a right to developmental needs from the state and a state that is able to effectively address the needs of citizens.
• Transparency and Accountability in Provision of Health Service Health Delivery: The project uses research-based methodologies to advocate for a district hospital and bring together key governance players including CSOs, the media, and elected representatives. It focuses on building communal capacity and confidence to engage with duty bearers, as well as on strengthening capacity in advocacy skills, ability to demand accountability from duty bearers, capacity to take part in decision-making, plan for change and accept change. All in all, the implementing body, Institute for Policy Interaction (IPI), seeks to see a strong and informed grassroots community with mechanisms, advocacy skills and the right partnerships to successfully demand accountability from duty bearers for non-delivery of essential services, beyond the Phalombe district hospital. IPI is a vision driven policy think tank that offers fact-based pro-poor inputs towards governmental policy formulation and decision making. The institution uses research to collect, collate, and disseminate relevant information to all stakeholders in order to catalyse a fully participatory democracy.