By Arnold Namanja

Blantyre, August 5, Mana: Minister of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, Jean Sendeza has underscored the need for providing adequate institutional capacity to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the country to ensure effective management of the non-state actors.

Speaking on Monday in Blantyre during the launch of the K1 billion NGO Fund, Sendeza observed that the 2023 NGO Report revealed that the NGO sector is one of the key drivers of the country’s economy, hence deserving special attention.

“The report shows that since 2020, at least 100 NGOs were dormant due to capacity issues and financial challenges. It was also discovered that most civil society organizations were duplicating their efforts which was crippling the work of such organizations,” she said.

Sendeza said poor alignment of the NGOs has also led to failure in profiling the NGO sector, leading to most civil society organizations working in isolation and not effectively engaging communities, they intend to serve.

“The Fund will help in closing gaps around community engagement during implementation of projects and also ensure sustainability of activities done through local NGOs. In order to address these challenges, government through the NGO Regulatory Authority (NGORA) is providing an enabling environment to ensure that local NGOs thrive,” she said.

Sendeza said the launch of the fund comes after a directive from President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera during the 2023 NGO Day that a comprehensive strategy to make the sector vibrant should be put in place.

“The NGO Fund is not only valuable in monetary terms but it will be impactful in form of consolidating the governance and management of NGOs especially CBOs to migrate to local NGOs,” Sendeza said.

The minister pledged that government would allocate resources to the NGO Fund annually to empower and sustain the activities of NGOs.

NGORA Chief Executive Officer, Edward Chileka-Banda said the regulatory authority is currently finalizing necessary procedures and that upon the completion of the exercise, NGOs depending on their eligibility, will be invited to apply for the fund.

“The NGO fund has been sourced from government subvention and NGO fees and aims to create an enabling environment for NGOs’ operations in Malawi. The fund will be used to build institutional capacity of NGOs that will include system strengthening and compliance to NGO Act and policy.

“Therefore, only those NGOs that are registered and have valid annual licenses will qualify for the fund,” said Chileka-Banda, adding that so far 463 NGOs have obtained valid licenses for the year 2024 and urged all NGOs yet to renew their licenses to do so promptly.

Speaking earlier, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the Council for Non- Governmental Organizations in Malawi (CONGOMA), Ronald Mtonga expressed happiness to witness the launch of the fund, noting that most of the NGOs face challenges in terms of resource mobilization as such the fund would provide relief.

Mtonga commended government for the push towards the establishment of the Fund. However, he asked authorities to use the Fund for the intended purpose.

“For a start, K1 billion is a big sum of money. We hope that we move forward, the fund will grow to K5 billion, K10 billion and so on and so forth,” he said.