Malawi underutilises European union funds
Director of Debt and Aid in the Ministry of Finance, Economic Planning and Development Peter Simbani on Thursday bemoaned Malawi’s low absorption capacity of the European Union (EU) resources under the 10th European Development Fund (EDF).
The 10th EDF spanned from 2008 to 2013 and its main areas of focus were agriculture and natural resources, transport and infrastructure, economics and governance and general budget support.
The initial total allocation to Malawi under the 10th EDF was 451 million euros but the resources were later augmented three times to 609 million euros.
Said Simbani: “However, programmes and projects implementation has had some challenges as can be observed that only 55 percent of this phenomenal amount has been disbursed.”
He was speaking in Lilongwe during the EU-country portfolio performance review meeting for EU development interventions.
The meeting was aimed at analysing and assessing the performance of the EU portfolio through various development interventions that are implemented in Malawi.
“It is important for Malawi to seriously identify the challenges as this will be the most important outcome of this meeting so that we can improve on our absorption rate of the resources that the EU is giving us,” said Simbani.
He said despite the 10th EDF winding up in 2013, there are still some programmes and projects that are still continuing with the resources that were committed under the 10th EDF.
But he said his own overall assessment of the 10th EDF is that Malawi has done extremely well in terms of securing additional resources from the EU.
On her part, Head of EU-supported National Authorising Unit (Nao) Madalo Nyambose said some of the challenges during the implementation of the 10th EDF were protracted negotiations for some projects, the 2013 lapses in the financial management systems and the multiplicity of donors involved in a sector.
On a positive note, Nyambose cited increased policy dialogue between government and the EU as one key achievement during the implementation of the 10th EDF.
Head of EU Delagation to Malawi Marchel Gerrmann said the review meetings allow the sharing of experiences on how different programmes are being implemented and also create an opportunity for peer learning among projects.
