Natural resource governance in Malawi

Our goal is to address environmental challenges related to extractive industries, lack of transparency between investors and the government, and inadequate local participation in decision processes.

The community in Malingunde has been affected by an Australian mining company, and though the initiative Theater for Development, they can express their feelings towards the company and government Photo: Håvard Hovdhaugen/NCA
The community in Malingunde has been affected by an Australian mining company, and though the initiative Theater for Development, they can express their feelings towards the company and government Photo: Håvard Hovdhaugen/NCA

With our partners, particularly Natural Resource Justice Network (NRJN), we advocate for and engage in dialogues to safeguard equitable distribution of wealth, revise poor taxation policies, and counter tax evasion and corruption that greatly affect revenue collection from the mining sector.

We also promote proactive role of the right-holders to hold government and investors accountable and secure improvements in policies and legal frameworks governing the extractive industries. With NRJN, we have achieved milestones with respect to two of our important advocacy agendas, i.e. passing of the “Right to Information Law” and Malawi’s possible imminent entry into the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). We advocate for allocation of funds to communities directly affected by the mining activities and provide legal support against land grabbing. We help set up mining stakeholder structures on the local and district levels to support communityinitiatives under Corporate Social Responsibility.

Some of our achievements from 2016:

  • Through the Natural Resource Governance, 340 (140 females and 200 males) right-holders participated in the National mining indaba and 859 right-holders were sensitized on Corporate Social Responsibility.
  • 24 meetings were conducted with parliamentary committee on Natural resources on mining governance and issues related to policy review. 409 community members’ capacity was built on mining issues including Community Action Groups.