HRCC Courts Governance Institutions

Norwegian Ambassador to Malawi, Asbjørn Eidhammer, officially opened a consultative workshop organised by the Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC) on September 14, 2012.
With support from Royal Norwegian Embassy (RNE), HRCC is running a three year program called “Accountability of Governance Institutions in Malawi”.

The program aims to increase civil society and consequently community awareness, knowledge, and skills to hold formal national governance and accountability institutions accountable and responsive to the demands of the citizenry.
The stakeholder consultation workshop brought together HRCC partners to sensitise them and build their capacity on how they can effectively hold governance institutions accountable. It also sought to generate feedback from HRCC members on how the project can be implemented better.
In his remarks, Eidhammer said accountability was a requirement for democracy.

"The promotion of democracy and respect for human rights should be joint efforts involving both state and non-state actors. This is what the present government offers, and that is what the Human Rights Consultative Committee is aiming at," he said.

The programme develops the capacity of HRCC members to implement Rights Based Approach and governance programmes. It harmonises civil society efforts to facilitate adherence to reporting to international human rights instruments. The programme also emphasises documentation of human rights violation cases.

HRCC Board Chairperson, Undule Mwakasungula, said HRCC also believes that the Democratic Governance Framework provides a platform for different governance partner’s engagement and that the need for governance institutions' efficiency, effectiveness, accountability and integrity cannot be over-emphasized.

"HRCC is therefore taking an active role in ensuring that Civil Society effectively engages with governance institutions on issues of Transparency and Accountability," he said.

Mwakasungula added that his organisation intended to carry out performance reviews of Governance Institutions and make recommendations to make the services more accessible to poor Malawians.
Central to the programme is also to facilitate social accountability and democratic governance through evidence based human rights promotion and governance monitoring by December, 2014.

The project is focusing on governance institutions that have been put in place to ensure that every Malawian enjoys basic human rights and human dignity. Specifically, the programme shall build the capacity of HRCC members to demand accountability from governance constitutional bodies such as the Malawi Law Commission, the Office of the Ombudsman, the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC), the Legal Aid Department, the Electoral Commission (EC), the Anti- Corruption Bureau, and the National Compensation Tribunal.

The project also conducts public perceptions institutional Audits to determine performance of governance institutions and whether their work is done to the best interest of the people.

"This project is therefore designed to increase civil society and consequently community awareness, knowledge, and skills requisite for demanding democratic governance and social accountability," said Marcel Chisi, Chairperson of the Programmes Sub-Committee of the HRCC Board.

Solicitor General, Anthony Kamanga, who is also Chairperson of the Democratic Accountability Sector, assured HRCC and the participants that Government was eager to engage with the CSOs through the Democratic Governance Sector, which is one of the 16 sector working groups in Malawi.

“In fact, it’s not Government per se that invited CSOs to participate in the sector. It’s the Sector Working Group. If there are issues of mistrust, they should rather be raised in the sector itself,” he advised.