The National Engagement Strategy (NES) Malawi is growing its membership.
It launched a platform governance training for its members to develop a shared understanding on how to strengthen the organisation.
Among the newcomers are members of government institutions, the private sector and civil based organisations. This new development led the platform to organise a training in multi-stakeholder platform governance on March 27 2019 at Crossroads Hotel in Lilongwe, Malawi. It was a chance to engage all 30 actors present in a guided discussion on building a platform and installing principles of good governance and accountability in it.
Platform building
After a brief introduction of NES Malawi, the meeting opened with a dialogue on collective platform principles. Values that can be applied to everyone across the board. Members further agreed to strengthen their commitments on integrity, transparency and accountability, equity and self-efficacy. An area that can stall a network’s ability to progress is trust. Without it, a network of organisations can not develop a strong policy. On this area, participants resolved to building trust by treating everyone fairly.
Good governance
Lack of good governance in land management platforms robs indigenous peoples and other minority groups off their lands and natural resources. In groups of four, participants performed the health check, a set of indicators used by various platforms to gauge their performances in different areas.
They equally exchanged knowledge on six thematic areas keen to NES Malawi. They include strong foundations; membership; governance structures; participation and decision making; and transparency and accountability.
This discussion enabled members to envision policies and guidelines to form a solid governance framework for NES Malawi. This framework will be popularised and monitored as a baseline for subsequent checks
NES Malawi’s got a new host
We Effect is the new host of NES Malawi. Members of the platform concluded to move the hosting of the platform of to We Effect after evaluating how the platform performed under its previous strategy. After deliberating and agreeing on a new strategy, NES Malawi members unanimously designed We Effect to host its activities. We Effect, is an ILC global member, with activities in Africa. In Malawi it supports people living in poverty to secure their rights and improve their livelihoods.