Malawi

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Consultation with Volunteer Organisations in SDG Implementation - Volunteering for development is a ‘powerful and cross-cutting means of implementation for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)2 in Malawi, and it is important that the Government is working closely with volunteer groups to implement the goals as they provide institutional and financial capacities to programme implementation and monitoring . Volunteering is a universal phenomenon, but it does not occur at uniform rates, nor is it uniformly effective. There is a need therefore to recognise and support towards volunteerism to make it strong and effective. National and local governments, the UN system, the private sector, civil society, volunteer groups, and volunteers themselves have a role to play in creating and sustaining an enabling environment for volunteering. To achieve the SDGs targets, Malawi needs to invest in strategies that recognise and harness all its resources that are manifest in natural and human capacities. There is evidence that when properly appropriated, volunteerism is an effective and efficient means for enhancing capacity utilization at different levels of the community. Furthermore, Sustainable Development Goals and Agenda 2030 has highlighted (UN Resolution A/RES/70/1) that volunteerism is an important component of any strategy that is aimed at poverty reduction and sustainable development for addressing social exclusion and discrimination.

A recent study by the Government of Malawi shows that more than five thousand young people including graduates from universities and institutions of higher learning are released every year to the job market to compete for the limited formal jobs available per year. Unemployment continues to persist. Youth labour force alone constitutes 23 % of the total labour force with the total youth annual labour force growth rate of 4%; the youth cohort is therefore a resource in development waiting to be tapped. As a strategy, Volunteerism can provide young people (in their various categories) with the opportunity to engage and gain employability skills through graduate internship and volunteering schemes among other opportunities. With the potential that volunteerism has towards Malawi’s attainment of SDGs, Africa Agenda 2063 and MGDS III as well as the already existing remarkable work by government (through the internship programme) and international volunteer organisations such as VSO, Habitat international, UNV, Corps Africa, WUSK and UNV, government needs to create a monitoring and evaluation framework to track the contributions of volunteerism to national development. Consequently, the contributions of volunteerism have not been accounted for. Malawi government has made progress to develop a fully-fledged policy and legal framework by currently embarking first on the development of a National Volunteer Framework.

The government of Malawi through the Ministry responsible for labour is currently in the final stages of completing the development of the National Volunteer Framework which seeks to create an environment in which all segments of the population including the diaspora, youths can find space to volunteer their time and services and contribute towards the national and global development vision. Volunteers are embedded in communities, volunteers 1often get to places that others cannot, forging links with local communities, and can form a bridge between formal and informal provision of public services. Volunteers are instrumental in building a strong civil society that is active in implementing the SDGs. As such, their work is a valuable contribution to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.