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Abstract:
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The report is a product of a nationwide survey conducted during March and April, 2001 under the IDS-CSR Social Policy Study Programme in Southern Africa. The overall intention of this programme is to provide information to stakeholders that will inform social policy and lead to more effective social intervention in Malawi. The main aim of this study is to investigate mismatches in social service provisioning (health, education and social protection programmes) with the actual needs of the poor Malawians.
This report presents findings from the structure questionnaire administered to individual households. The issues that were tackled include demand for and supply of education and health services, and the participation of households in formal safety net programmes.
The following is a gap analysis undertaken in the study:
- Coverage gap – exploring which communities and categories of people are excluded from current social programmes.
- Effectiveness gap – exploring the variance between the service being provided and the users’ needs or expectations.
- Needs gap – exploring the needs actually being addressed vis-à-vis those needs that remain unaddressed.
The authors’ findings and recommendations include that gaps exist both in the supply and demand of the basic social services (health and education) and social protection programmes. The paper recommends that the low level of formal educational attainment in the sample, which also refers to the low level of demand for education services, should be improved through massive investments in education at all levels. Similar investments must be made in the health sector if the general welfare of the Malawian rural population is to improve. Issues of access (communication networks) must be addressed carefully by policy. Further recommendations include that:
- the government ought to formulate proper mechanisms for instituting cost-sharing services in its health facilities
- better means of targeting for the social protection programmes (area and household) should be devised and reinforced and regular monitoring be provided to avert the current situation which has elements of high exclusion of the intended beneficiaries while having high inclusion of the non-beneficiaries
- policy should re-assess the credit schemes to provide for an all-winner framework especially for the rural poor. |