CONCLUSIONES Y RECOMENDACIONES

The Malawi Government coordinates the orphan care programme through the Ministry of Gender, Children and Community Services (MoGCCS). The Government’s role in orphan care response include the formulation of OVC policies, mobilisation and coordination of orphan care stakeholders for the provision of care and support services for HIV/AIDS affected and infected households. The Government also facilitates the review of legal instruments for protecting the rights of OVC and developing operational structures and committees for orphan care programmes. The implementation of orphan care programme is facilitated by the National Plan of Action (NPA). The NPA had six objectives namely to enhance orphan access to essential services, strengthen family and community capacity to care for orphans, protect OVC through improved policy and legislation, improve the capacity of service providers to deliver orphan care services, raise awareness of the public on the plight and rights of OVC and continuous orphan care progress monitoring and evaluation (Malawi Government 2005).

Following the policy guidelines, the MoGCCS facilitated the formation of orphan care policy and technical committees. The national OVC steering committee (NOVCSC) has the responsibility of providing policy guidance and supervisory service in support of the implementation of the OVC NPA, while the NOVCTWG guides service implementation level.

The NOVCSC membership includes Principle Secretaries of Government Ministries, Country Directors, Representatives of International and local NGOs, United Nations agencies and donor agencies. The policy level orphan care committee (NOVCSC) is chaired by the Principal Secretary for MoGCCS. Child Development Department, in the

MoGCCS is the secretariat of both policy level (NOVCSC) and the service technical advisory level (NOVCTWG). The policy orphan care level (NOVCSC) is assisted by a national OVC technical working group (NOVCTWG) made up of technical specialists from Government and NGOs. This committee is composed of Directors of relevant line Ministries, Programme Managers of International and local NGOs, Section Heads and Project Officers of United Nations agencies. The NOVCTWG is responsible for providing technical guidance to the NOVCSC.

Various committees service orphan care at different levels. The NOVCSC and the NOVCTWG operate at national level. At district assembly level, the district OVC committee (DOVCC) is comprised of Government District Officers (Health, Education, Agriculture, Labour, Judicial and others), the private sector and the NGOs. This committee is chaired by the District Assembly Chief Executive. The Social Welfare Officer is the secretary of the DOVCC. The role of this committee is to plan, coordinate and implements orphan care services for the whole district.

The third level is the community where the orphans live. At this level, the community/village orphan care committee (VOCC) are composed of CBOs, local leaders, caregivers and Government technical assistants from different line Ministries (child protection workers, health surveillance assistants, home farm assistants, community police and others). The child protection worker coordinates the technical activities at this level, under the guidance of the chief.

The role of the VOCC is to implement orphan care services, identify orphan care services beneficiaries, distribute material support to orphans, and provide orphan care services' progress reports to District Assembly through Social Welfare Staff. The higher-level personnel, from National and the district levels, are responsible for supporting the community service providers by building their capacity and supervising them. For example, the NGOs are expected to implement services in the community through the CBOs, which are members of VOCCs. Any direct service implementation in the community by the district or the national level is considered as a violation of orphan care structure.

Table 2.2: Child-related services for orphans and other children.

Sector Type of services

Education school fees, learning materials, school feeding, school health and community-based child care centres

Economic income generating activities, cash transfer, vocational & life skills, economic empowerment training

Food & Nutrition nutrition education, food production & dietary diversification services, micronutrient supplementation

Protection from abuse

child protection and participation services, gender based violence programme, access to juvenile justice

Psychosocial care psychosocial training & counselling services

Health community child care services, under five

health, CHBC , VCT, ART, reproductive health, home-based care

Source: (Malawi Government 2004b; Malawi Government 2005; Malawi Government 2006b)

The multi-sector orphan care service providers implement child-related services in different sectors as shown in table 2.2 including education, economic, food and nutrition, protection from abuse and health.

Studies done in Malawi suggest that CSOs and CBOs seeking to provide responsive services to orphans face difficulties. James and Malunga (2006) conducted research to understand the development of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) networks, and to assess the contribution of CSOs to poverty reduction. About 25 stakeholders from three CSOs were interviewed, with semi-structured interviews. The organisations that were interviewed included, Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), Land Task Force and Civil Society Coalition for Quality Basic Education (CSCQBE). The findings suggested

that the CSOs had contributed towards raising the voice of the poor in policy decisions, and monitoring Government policy implementation. Furthermore, the findings suggested that CSOs have leadership problems, they failed to manage their members, they played multiple roles, lacked technical competence and failed to mobilise resources. This study however, lacked some critical information and methodological rigour. The study did not explain the criteria used to select the organisations. In fact, the sampled organisations were all big scale, urban-based with large donor support. Therefore, the organisations were not representative of the true nature of national CSOs in Malawi, since they left out the indigenous small scale CSOs.

In order to inform policy and institutional development, the Insitute for Policy Research and Social Empowerment (2007) conducted research to explore the extent of community based organisations response to HIV/AIDS pandemic. Focus group discussions and interviews were conducted with 26 CBOs. The findings identified factors that determined the success or failure of CBOs. The factors included, conflicting views on voluntarism, participation of community members, patronage (dependence on handouts), management, networking and financial sustainability. Furthermore, the research suggested that the work of CBOs was hampered by institutional factors including lack of operational guidelines and selfish motive for establishing CBOs.