The Malawi Local Government Accountability and Performance ( LGAP) project was designed to improve the performance of Local Government in Malawi and promoting continued progress on the path to decentralization and improved service delivery in local councils.
LGAP involves integration in joint planning, leveraging resources, evaluating results together and a holistic coordinated response that meets district development objectives.
Speaking during the Dowa district council’s integration forum, LGAP Integration Coordinator, Prisca Semu, said the goal of integration is to create greater returns on investment through mutually reinforcing activities ( all by avoiding duplication), reducing conflicts from overlapping intervention to produce cost effective governance practices and easing the burden on local government that comes from numerous development actors.
Semu said LGAP has the objective of supporting the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to enhance government’s decentralization process in Malawi and to support improved democratic accountability and local government capacity to effectively deliver public services for improved government performance.
“LGAP has increased its geographical scope from 8 to 28 districts with emphasis on replicating models of success,” said Semu.
In her remarks, Dowa District council’s Director of Planning and Development, Loveness Silungwe, urged NGO partners and the council to work together in ensuring that the communities in the district benefit from the services which are being provided.
Silungwe said the council is committed to improve service delivery in the district but resources are not enough hence relying fully on partners to compliment government efforts towards providing the services to the people.
She said councilors and MPs know that councils do not receive funding as per planned activities for the projects, urging the Secretariat to reach out to them so that they understand how projects are being funded by the council because them also have their own issues.
Speaking earlier, the council’s former Acting Director of Planning and Development, Yusuf Laki, said District Development Plan( DDP) has to be reviewed every two years for partners to share their inputs saying the previous DDP was not respected beside the district having a priority of the priority need, water.
Laki, thanked organizations such as CADECOM, World Vision and others for drilling boreholes in the district expressing hope that NGOs will continue to be good partners for the district.
The Malawi Local Government Accountability and Performance ( LGAP) project is being funded by USAID, UKaid and the Government of Malawi through the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development.
