Malawi's Citizens' Juries on the Constituency Development Fund (2020)

In 2020 the Australian New Democracy Foundation helped pilot Malawi’s first-ever citizens’ juries, in the Salima District. The target was the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) — money sent from central government to each constituency for local projects, and a persistent source of corruption, opacity and distrust, to the point that some citizens and civil-society groups were calling for it to be scrapped. Rather than abolish it, randomly selected citizens were asked how to make it work.

Who took part, and how they were chosen

Salima District has five constituencies, so five juries of 20 people each were formed, 100 citizens in total, after the District Council and the local MPs agreed to a request from citizens. The selection method is the most instructive part. With no reliable address register to draw a sortition sample from, the team improvised: they went to open-air markets on their known weekly schedule, gathered a crowd, handed out coloured paper, and drew by colour, then recorded the names of those selected. It is a vivid demonstration that the principle of a civic lottery, giving everyone an equal chance and shielding the room from powerful interests, can survive translation to a low-data context.

What they did

The juries deliberately kept their scope local and achievable, steering clear of high-stakes national CDF policy. Members were given the CDF guidelines, sent home to inspect the CDF projects actually running in their own areas, then reconvened to compare what the rules said with what was happening on the ground and identify the discrepancies. Literacy was the main early barrier; once members grasped the material, facilitators reported, they acted on it quickly. The process was interrupted three times by COVID and ran for roughly a year.

What they produced

The juries reached consensus on a set of practical recommendations, including:

• identify CDF projects from village action plans and the district development plan;
• put every project through a normal appraisal process;
• give each project an independently elected, trained project management committee;
• have the council and the Area Development Committee monitor implementation, funded by the 5% the council already deducts from CDF money;
• follow the Public Procurement Act for goods;
• run rigorous, publicly disclosed audits on a project and constituency basis;
• have civil-society groups build CDF literacy into their community programmes.

What changed

The recommendations were submitted to the MPs and the Salima District Council, who found them reasonable and committed to them. An evaluation found a noticeable improvement in consultation during project identification, and greater transparency in fund disbursement and procurement. Beyond the projects, the juries built local capacity, set up peer-support networks to keep monitoring funds, and were linked through a local radio station (Chisomo Community Radio) airing CDF programmes where MPs and council staff answered questions.

The honest limit, as the practitioners stress, is institutionalisation: the juries were project-based and donor-dependent, and their reach was confined to the district level. Making such a process permanent is the unfinished work, but as a demonstration that ordinary citizens can deliberate well on a complex, politically charged public-money problem, the Salima juries are a landmark, and a key example in the UN’s case for deliberation against gridlock.

Sources

• Edwin Msewa, “Malawi — Exploring Worldwide Democratic Innovations” — European Democracy Hub, 2022: europeandemocracyhub.epd.eu
• Report of Citizen Assembly Meetings & Recommendations — Salima — newDemocracy Foundation: newdemocracy.com.au
• Edwin Msewa, remarks at “Deliberative Democracy for Breaking the Gridlock” — UNDP & UN Democracy Fund webinar, 2024: youtube.com/watch?v=aofZqy8y8RA