CONGOMA Governing Council paid a courtesy call to the Head of State, Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera on 8^th December 2023 at the Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe. The main purpose for the visit was to get him acquainted with CONGOMA operations and the operations of NGOs in the country. CONGOMA also wanted to introduce the just elected Governing Council to the Head of State.

In his speech, the chairperson of CONGOMA Governing Council, Mr Adil Chilungo, commended the President’s unwavering support for the NGO sector and expressed CONGOMA’s commitment to collaborate with his esteemed Government to achieve the developmental aspirations as outlined in Malawi Implementation Plan-1 and Malawi 2063.

Mr Adil also extended CONGOMA’s gratitude to the President for entrusting the Minister of Gender, Hon Jean Sendeza, MP, to represent him at their Annual General Meeting on 31st August, 2023 and for his encouraging letter addressed to the CONGOMA Chairperson during the General Meeting.

CONGOMA also expressed their perspectives on the Economy in which they shared their insights on the current economic challenges and their preparedness and commitment to assist the Government in addressing these issues.

CONGOMA is mandated to coordinate all NGO efforts in order to maximise service delivery impact to the beneficiaries. Mr Chilungo assured the President that, with the devaluation at hand, CONGOMA wields enormous influence to rally NGOs towards mitigating the resultant suffering of the citizenry.

The Chairperson also indicated that CONGOMA has in the past successfully established coordination mechanisms and promulgated a number of instruments to enhance NGO governance as follows:

• Established NGO District networks in all the 28 Districts in Malawi as interface hubs with local Councils within the Decentralization/sector devolution context.
• Has 20 NGO sectoral coordination groups
• Initiated the drafting of the initial NGO Bill of 1995 which led to enactment of the NGO Act 2000
• Developed an NGO Code of Conduct for NGOs as a mirror of expected conduct of NGOs
• Promulgated an NGO Governance Charter as a commitment by NGOs to abide by Good governance
• Successfully advocated for NGO participation in public policy forums and donor portfolios, and
• Successfully pioneered NGO impact assessments in 2008

NGOs continue to contribute immensely to the development of this country as evidenced by the recent figures as follows:

• NGOs being employers in which NGOs employ over 25,000 people as of 2021 figures. This is 18% of the Civil Service and as such, the sector is a big employer.
• Contribution towards tax revenue in which PAYE alone grossed over MK12 billion in 2021
• Contributions to forex availability in which over Mk150 billion grants were received in Malawi in foreign currency, and
• Contributions to service delivery and social capital development

With full support from Government, CONGOMA is committed to;

1. a) Coordinate NGOs investments in agriculture productivity and commercialization; strengthened production capacities of Malawians for domestic and export markets; mind set change; environmental sustainability and fighting effects of climate change including disaster risk management; mining; open government partnership; Regional economic integration and enhanced public sector performance.
2. b) Coordinate NGOs to facilitate the human capital development focusing on quality of our youths through education, training (TEVET), science and technology for the domestic and export labour market to increase forex and tax revenue.
3. c) Coordinate for the fight against corruption. CONGOMA is fully aware that with a serious fight on corruption, the Government can release more resources to help cushion the suffering due to devaluation. For example, the social cash transfer purse can go up while supporting more farmers with farm inputs that will militate against hunger. CONGOMA, through the NGOs, has great capacity in reaching out to the masses in creating the needed awareness and mind-set change towards the fight against corruption. More importantly, the faith sector within CONGOMA provides the much needed value frameworks necessary for an effective mind-set change.
4. d) Coordinate NGOs to achieve high impacts in their projects and ensure that their project outputs are evenly spread across the country to benefit more Malawians
5. e) Coordinate NGOs for social and financial accountability including pushing for implementation of public audit recommendations at Council and central Government levels and monitoring of impact from projects funded from public resources.
6. f) Coordinate the deepening of the Localization agenda in Malawi including NGO internship programme, which has a direct impact towards service delivery and employment creation for the country. CONGOMA has the capacity of becoming the clearing house for local NGOs for partnerships with International NGOs which is core to the Localization Agenda.
7. g) Diligently undertake its role of being the first call for conflict resolution among NGOs in Malawi, a function necessary for smooth and uninterrupted development work in the sector.
8. h) CONGOMA has the requisite professional resources for establishing a think tank to enable professional Research and Development as well as training given its diverse composition of NGOs cutting across all sectors such as health, economics, religion, agriculture, energy, and environment among others.

On his part, The Head of State, His Excellency, Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, commended CONGOMA for making the effort to update him on the issues of the NGO sector. He assured them that he welcomes CONGOMA as a stakeholder in the development of this country and his Government is committed to working with the NGOs in order to serve Malawians.

The President commended the seamless transition of CONGOMA governance as demonstrated by the presence of both the ex-chair and current chair of the Governing Council at the meeting. He then directed CONGOMA to assess the progress of the amended NGO Act 2022. He pointed out that bad attitude is what brings Malawi down and should not be condoned in the NGO sector if we are to progress in the development of this country. We need to engage MDAs in the work of the NGOs and we need to intensify production as it is the major driver of our economy.

Present at the meeting, was Mrs Martha Kwataine, the Presidential advisor on Civil Society. The meeting ended with an agreement from both sides to work together to serve Malawi.