Côte d’Ivoire Family Planning Budget Scorecard
Malawi Family Planning Budget Scorecard
Malawi's Family Planning Budget Commitments
To support the achievement of its Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) commitments, the government of Malawi pledged to:
- Add a family planning (FP) commodities budget line in the main drug budget by fiscal year (FY) 2013/14.
- Increase the budgetary allocation for FP commodities and youth programming.
The government fulfilled its first commitment and created an FP commodities budget line in 2013, although this budget line is not included in the publicly available annual budget document (Financial Statement) — it can only be found in a document produced for internal government use, making it difficult for civil society to track the commodities allocation and expenditure. While the budget allocation for commodities has nominally increased over the four fiscal years tracked in the scorecard (FY 2016/17-FY 2019/20), the allocation as a share of the commodities funding need decreased by nearly 50% from 2.6% in FY 2017/18 to 1.4% in FY 2018/19. Fortunately, this trend has started to reverse, as the FY 2019/20 scorecard shows that the allocation as a share of the funding need increased slightly to 1.5% (a 7% increase).
Given the impact of COVID-19 and the U.K. Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) aid cuts on donor resources for FP, domestic resource mobilization for FP has become more important than ever. The FCDO cut 85% ($180 million) of its contribution to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) for FY 2021/22 (April to March), most of which went to the UNFPA Supplies Partnership. Malawi will be especially affected by these cuts given the government’s heavy dependence on contraceptives provided by UNFPA. Currently, Malawi is finalizing its Family Planning 2030 (FP2030) commitments for dissemination, and the government has recently decided that it will develop a new Family Planning Costed Implementation Plan (the previous one ended in 2020). Both documents will shed more light on the government’s intentions toward increasing and spending domestic resources for FP supplies and services.
Malawi’s Performance on the FY 2019/20 Family Planning Budget Scorecard
Developed by the Malawi Network of AIDS Service Organizations (MANASO), in collaboration with PAI, this scorecard is an advocacy tool highlighting the findings of the organization’s FP budget tracking using the Common Framework, a set of indicators used for monitoring government spending on FP. In addition to data on indicators, the scorecard evaluates the transparency of FP budget data. The scorecard is a product of PAI’s Government Accountability for Family Planning Budgets initiative.
The government of Malawi is commended for increasing its FP commodities allocation by 126% from MWK 82.7 million in FY 2018/19 to MWK 187 million in FY 2019/20, spending 100% of the FP commodities allocation in FY 2019/20 and supporting many health system-wide costs that contribute to FP service delivery, such as health worker salaries, maintenance of health facilities and support to vital outreach services. It is also commended for having an FP commodities budget line.
Recommendations to strengthen government ownership of Malawi’s FP and to improve the transparency of FP budget data include:
- Ministry of Finance (MoF) and Ministry of Health (MoH) to identify funds to increase the FP commodities allocation to demonstrate commitment to FP.
- MoH to allocate funds to FP programs to demonstrate ownership and reach remote locations where FP services are not provided by development partners.
- MoF to disburse FP commodities allocation as scheduled to allow expenditure to be done within the same fiscal year.
- MoH to publish FP commodities allocation, disbursement and expenditure data on its website. These data are already produced for internal use, but not made available to the public.
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