Malawi

There are few grounds for believing that the implicit hypothesis contained within the PRSP approach – that PRSPs will change the nature of conditionality, leading to enhanced ownership of the strategies themselves, and therefore more effective implementation – will hold true in the case of Malawi. This is despite the fact that the PRSP formulation process has been among the country's most participatory policy–making exercises to date, with civil society engaging in both policy dialogue and co–ordinated protest. Key constraints are an absence of high–level political commitment to serious reform and the lack of a thoroughgoing overhaul of conditionality by the IFIs.