Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) Blantyre chapter has said community development structures such as village and area development committees (VDCs and ADCs) remain crucial to national development.
Chairperson for the chapter, Andrew Mwantani, said if these committees are empowered, they could best implement the bottom up approach to national development which he said is a key democratic tenet.
Mwantani was speaking at a training for members of VDCs in the areas of Traditional Authorities Somba, Kapeni and Kunthembwe in Blantyre.
He said Malawi can hardly develop if the local structures are not empowered to actively participate in national development activities through the ADCs and VDCs.
“We need to adopt and enforce the bottom up approach to national issues if we are to develop as a nation, people at grass root level should infact be able to demand the type of developments they need in their areas instead of the central government imposing developments on people,” he said.
Over 40 ADC members will be trained in leadership, procurement, budget tracking, monitoring and evaluation which will build their capacity to specifically track and hold Members of Parliament accountable as to how they are using the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).
Mwantani, therefore, said the training will also make it possible for communities to claim and own public funded development projects.
“There have been instances where elected official s would actually manipulate communities into believing that they use their own money to finance these projects when in actual fact they use government finances,” he said adding, “this training brings to an end this malpractice”.
Speaking in an interview, Ellen Matchuwa, who is Chairperson for Mwangota Village Development Committee, said such trainings have empowered communities to demand accountability from duty bearers.
“There have been times in the past when we could suffer in silence whenever we are told our hospitals have run out of drugs for example but now we are able to track why such facilities have no drugs and when they last received a consignment in the long run enhancing accountability among service providers,’ she said.
The training and similar others are being held with financial support from Trocaire.
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