[{"bbox": [146, 146, 1080, 470], "category": "Table", "text": "<table><tr><td>External Environment</td><td>If no new public funding, expansion of secondary education provision requires to continue relying on the contribution from households, and potentially from the private sector subject to external crises</td><td>High</td><td>Medium</td><td>Using the budget support to incentivise the protection of the current financing to the sector, promote more efficient use of available resources and increased equity in the provision of education services.</td></tr></table>"}, {"bbox": [146, 483, 305, 508], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## Lessons Learnt:"}, {"bbox": [146, 522, 878, 550], "category": "Text", "text": "The main lessons learnt from previous budget support operations in Malawi are:"}, {"bbox": [146, 561, 1082, 828], "category": "Text", "text": "**Political governance** - The importance of strong leadership commitment to achieving reforms is essential. With the current Government, the highest levels of the Malawi Government are committed to reforms. However, it should not be assumed that the level of commitments from government leaders will always remain as strong, and that they can push reforms through a bureaucracy without the cooperation of reformers at operational levels. Hence, the Action will leverage sector-level interventions to ensure the public administration's buy-in and participation. In particular, the current EU Chuma Cha Dziko programme will continue to provide tailored technical assistance to implement the PFM reforms agenda and related change management, while an upcoming new EU-Germany programme, implemented by GIZ, shall further foster accountability, strengthen the fight against corruption and transparency in the public sector."}, {"bbox": [146, 839, 1082, 1026], "category": "Text", "text": "**Conditionality and predictability** - When designing Budget Support conditionalities and sanctions, the impact of poor performance as well as suspension of Budget Support on macroeconomic stabilisation needs to be particularly taken into account, in particular in the fragile context of Malawi. Hence, the Action has been elaborated to be impactful but simple and robust in design. Full transparency on conditions for release and clarity between conditionalities on Budget Support and commitment to other cooperation programmes will be ensured, coupled with continuous policy dialogue, including with other donors resuming budget support."}, {"bbox": [146, 1037, 1082, 1251], "category": "Text", "text": "**Need for Improved Statistics and M&E** - Data is important to ensure that the accountability function is fulfilled. The country's statistical capacity remains limited by a lack of data management mechanisms/systems, limited coordination/collaboration within and between institutions, and weaknesses in the sectors' information management systems. The Action will be supported by an *ad hoc* EU programme, implemented by UNDP/UNFPA aiming at establishing a Human Resources Management Information System, which will strive to strengthen the government data management capacity and to improve accountability and efficiency in resource allocation. Support to the strengthening of the EMIS is also expected to be provided via complementary measures."}, {"bbox": [146, 1262, 748, 1289], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### Other lessons learnt from interventions in the education sector"}, {"bbox": [146, 1301, 1082, 1382], "category": "Text", "text": "**Need for Ownership** - Donor support in the education sector needs to be adopted by the government in its own budget and scaled across the country. There is a need for longer term approaches and effective and equitative allocation of funding of resources."}, {"bbox": [146, 1393, 1082, 1501], "category": "Text", "text": "**Need for Coordination mechanisms** - Interventions addressing supply and demand constraints have been able to improve access and retention in the secondary education system. However, the lack of mechanisms to coordinate properly the different interventions are a significant challenge and inefficiency in the system (e.g. bursaries schemes)."}, {"bbox": [146, 1512, 1082, 1593], "category": "Text", "text": "**Decentralisation is a long term process** - Although a roadmap for secondary education was approved, more recent review and reflection has shown that there is a need to focus in the short/medium term on strengthening school level systems for financial management, school improvement planning and"}, {"bbox": [965, 1681, 1080, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 15 of 29"}]