Curbing Corruption and Encouraging Fiscal Responsibility in Malawi

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contracted Casals & Associates in 2006 to lead a $7.7 million Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Threshold Country Program in Malawi. The overall goal of the two-year program was to strengthen government integrity to support Malawian efforts to roll back corruption and encourage fiscal responsibility. Under the Millennium Challenge Corporation Initiative, Casals & Associates worked in Malawi to:

• Establish and strengthen systems for preventing corruption
• Assist oversight institutions in becoming effective and independent
• Ensure that systems of enforcement and deterrence were in place and functioning effectively

Casals & Associates worked with a number of Government of Malawi Executive Branch institutions and civil society, including the media and the private sector, to strengthen the human and structural capacities within Malawi. In part as a result of our work there, Malawi received MCC Compact Status in December 2007, a year and a half after the project started. Malawi’s corruption indicator also turned from red to green, and the nation’s sovereign credit rating went up from a CCC to a B-.