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Public Financial Management for PRSP - Deutsches Institut für ...

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<strong>Public</strong> <strong>Financial</strong> <strong>Management</strong> <strong>for</strong> <strong>PRSP</strong> Implementation in Malawi<br />

hensive policy direction and guidance <strong>for</strong> development. The analysis in the<br />

DDP serves as a basis <strong>for</strong> selecting programmes and projects that the district<br />

would like to implement. The DEC is responsible <strong>for</strong> compiling the DDP,<br />

while the DA is responsible <strong>for</strong> its approval. (Republic of Malawi 2001,<br />

4–23). The Development Committee (DC) thus reviews the drafted plan and<br />

finally sends it to the full assembly <strong>for</strong> approval.<br />

Funding <strong>for</strong> local development<br />

To fund approved projects, the districts– in principle – have access to three<br />

different sources of revenue, namely central government grants, locally generated<br />

revenue, and ceded revenue collected by central government (see Section<br />

6.2.2.1).<br />

There are five major transfer mechanisms to provide financing <strong>for</strong> local governments,<br />

namely the General Resource Fund (GRF), District Development<br />

Fund (DDF), Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), EU Micro-projects<br />

Programme (MPP), and EU <strong>Public</strong> Works Programme.<br />

The GRF is a <strong>for</strong>mula-based unconditional block grant accessible to all local<br />

governments in Malawi. Although the main purpose is to provide funding <strong>for</strong><br />

recurrent expenditure of local governments, 25 percent of GRF grants are<br />

earmarked <strong>for</strong> capital investment. In the case of rural districts, these 25 percent<br />

are supposedly transferred directly to district’s DDF account. However,<br />

far more important <strong>for</strong> funding local development expenditure are the District<br />

Development Fund (DDF) and the Malawi Social Action Fund, which make<br />

up about 90 % of the capital budget of rural districts (GFA 2005, 51 et seq.).<br />

MASAF was established in 1995. The World Bank funded MASAF with a<br />

$122 million credit <strong>for</strong> the first two phases from 1995 to 2003. As most social<br />

action funds, MASAF administrative units manage nearly all processes related<br />

to identifying and financing community projects in a parallel structure<br />

to those of local government planning authorities.<br />

German Development <strong>Institut</strong>e 71

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