On 10th July 2020, WES Network Secretariat met with the Water Planning Department’s Chief Economist Mercy Msowoya to get updates on the review of sanitation and water policy, finalization of the joint financing arrangement, progress made on the localization of SDG 6 indicators and JSR undertakings progress.
According to Msowoya, most of the process have had hiccups resulting to slow progress. For instance, since the Joint Sector Review (JSR) meeting where WASH stakeholders (Government, Non-Governmental Organisations, Parastatals,Private actors and individuals) annually convene to discuss, assess and make recommendation on pertinent issues affecting the sector in December last year; Technical Working Groups (TWGs) have not been meeting to follow up on the recommendations.
Regarding Joint Financing Arrangements (JFA), the donor is yet to respond to the letter from the Malawi Government which sited recommendations that were drawn from the arrangement.
Following the above findings, WES Network secretariat along with the Policy & Advocacy TWG and Research and Knowledge Sharing TWG will therefore start engaging the National local government finance committee and the Ministry of Finance through the ministry`s desk officer among others to enhance progress.