Scottish govt pumps more money into Malawi-Scotland partnership

Scotland’s International Development Minister Humza Yousaf has announced that work to support civic society links between Scotland and Malawi will be strengthened with additional funding from the Scottish Government.

He says the Scottish Government will award £137,000 to support the Malawi Scotland Partnership (MaSP) to continue its work to inspire, facilitate and strengthen existing and new civil society links between Malawi and Scotland. The funding will secure the future of MaSP until at least 2017.

Yousaf announced the funding befofe meeting  Malawi’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Dr George Chaponda, in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

“Dr Chaponda’s visit signals a very important opportunity to further strengthen the special and enduring relationship Scotland and Malawi have enjoyed for many decades – a relationship that is of paramount important to us,” he said.

Yousaf said the award builds on the £192,000 this government has provided over the last three years through the Scotland Malawi Partnership – MaSP’s sister-organisation – to establish MaSP in Lilongwe and kick-start its important work to support vulnerable, isolated and impoverished communities in Malawi.

“Through this award, and the 43 projects we are currently supporting through the Malawi Development Programme, the people of Scotland are helping people in Malawi to access potentially life-changing projects to better their lives and the lives of their families,” he said.

Principal Officer of the Scotland Malawi Partnership David Hope-Jones said: “Scotland and Malawi have a long and proud friendship together dating back to Dr David Livingstone more than 156 years ago.  Today, almost 200,000 Malawians have active links with Scotland and more than 2 million Malawians directly benefit each year from a Scottish connection.”

He said over the past four years the Malawi Scotland Partnership (MaSP) has had a huge impact across Malawi, bringing together hundreds of NGOs, churches, schools, universities, hospitals and community groups together, each of which have their own links with Scotland, offering support and coordination of effort.
“This has greatly strengthened our unique national effort with Malawi, increasing the impact we are having and re-balancing the relationship from one with ‘donors’ on one side and ‘recipients’ on the other, to one of equal partners working together for mutual benefit.  Ours is now a two-way dignified partnership in which both sides contribute and both sides benefit.

“The Scottish Government should be praised for its far-sighted investment in this sort of dignified partnership which values the role civic society, at both sides of the partnership, can and does play in challenging poverty and the cry for basic human dignity.”

In 2012 the Scottish Government awarded a grant of £192,473 to the SMP/MaSP to advance the development of vulnerable, isolated and impoverished communities in Malawi by inspiring, facilitating and strengthening existing and new civil society links with Scotland, through advocacy, capacity building and coordination of effort.

Last year, almost 200,000 Malawians and 94,000 Scots were actively involved in links between the two countries with at least 2 million Malawians benefiting from the bilateral partnership.   More than 250 Scottish schools have established relationships with schools in Malawi, there is engagement through the health service, between our Parliaments, academic institutions, and hundreds of church and other civil society groups.

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