The Path to Paris: Malawi’s Progress on Making Commitments under Action Coalition 2

The Generation Equality Forum is a civil-society-centered, global gathering for gender equality. Its commencement was in Mexico City, Mexico, on 29-31 March 2021 and it will culminated in Paris, France, from 30th June to 2nd July 2021. The Paris convening will be hosted by UN Women and the French and Mexican governments with an aim to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Goals particularly SGD 5, by seeing out governments and other relevant stakeholders make commitments under the 6 Action Coalitions.   

CARE International in Malawi, finds itself in an interesting position as not only is CARE a co-lead on Action Coalition 2 Economic Justice and Rights, the government of Malawi is a co-lead on  Action Coalition 6, Feminist Movements and Rights, where the Paris convening could be an ideal platform to advance gender equality in the country.

Zooming into Action Coalition 2: Economic Justice and Rights

Following a primary assessment on Malawi’s state on Economic Justice and Rights, with a focus on Financial Inclusion and CARE’s VSLA programming, the following issues came up:

From the latest documentation, 55% of the population does not use any financial product and 74% of Malawians save their wealth in cash and kind. The government however is aware of the hindrances that exist between the average Malawian and formal financial services including savings, credit, insurance, and payment services.

With direction from the Ministry of Gender, CARE reworked its initial concept note on the GEF and Financial Inclusion. The revised version prioritizes bridging the gap between informal groups such as VSLAs and banks and other micro-loan institutions in order to promote financial inclusion and economic justice for women.  

CARE’s work with VSLAs has influenced the formulation of the National Strategy for Financial Inclusion and has been supporting the government in implementing the strategy. VSLAs are recognized as part of the strategy and though they are yet to be recognized as a formal structure, they are informally recognized by the government partly due to the scale-up activities that CARE has done for them across Malawi.

The Paris Forum is therefore an opportune moment where Government can make necessary commitments to upscale efforts such as VSLA programming, in order to achieve Economic Justice and Rights.

Onwards to Paris: What Is Next?

As CARE paves its way towards ensuring the government and other relevant stakeholders make commitments under action coalition 2, the next course of action, in May 2021, is to organize an interface meeting with government, financial institutions, UN organizations, and other development agencies whose agendas are in line with the GEF and accelerating gender equality to update them on the current state of financial inclusion and VSLA programming, and to draft commitments under Economic Justice and Rights. Later, CARE plans to go into the field to validate the findings from the interface meeting and the drafted commitments.