GEI Hosts Workshop in Brussels to Support Country-Led Evaluation of COVID-19 Cash Intervention in Malawi

In March 2024, the Global Evaluation Initiative hosted a collaborative writing workshop in Brussels for the Monitoring and Evaluation Division of the Malawi Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs and the Center for Learning on Evaluation and Results for Anglophone Africa (CLEAR-AA). 

The workshop was organized to finalize the report on the country-led evaluation of the unintended consequences of Malawi's COVID-19 Urban Cash Intervention (CUCI). The CUCI is a social protection program initiated by the Government of Malawi to reduce the adverse effects of the pandemic among low-income households in four major cities: Blantyre, Zoma, Mzuzu, and Malawi's capital, Lilongwe. It was the first social protection program to distribute cash transfers among Malawi's urban poor.

GEI Deputy Head Jos Vaessen led the workshop, which was attended by Martin Mwale from the Monitoring and Evaluation Division of Malawi's Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs; CLEAR-AA researcher Tebogo Fish; and Echica van Kelle, a policy researcher from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands.

The writing workshop focused on drafting an evaluation report that is message-driven to ensure that key evaluation findings are clearly and succinctly communicated to decision-makers and policymakers in government and development institutions. 

GEI, in partnership with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s COVID-19 Global Evaluation Coalition, is providing technical and financial support to governments interested in evaluating their national responses to the pandemic. The evaluations aim to generate evidence on performance and results, provide lessons for future crises, and improve collaboration. 

Since 2023, GEI and CLEAR-AA have been providing technical support to help evaluate the unintended consequences of the CUCI in Malawi. The evaluation findings will be shared with senior government officials and representatives from development partners at a high-level dissemination event in Lilongwe in May.