SMP Activity and Impact Report 2018-19
28 June 2019
Have a look at some of the key highlights from our 2018-19 Activity and Impact report.
In keeping with our commitment to transparency and accountability, every six months the Scotland Malawi Partnership publishes a public report outlining key events and activities against our agreed outcomes and outputs for 2017-2020.
This is separate to the Partnership’s Annual Report which is published at the autumn AGM.
Our 2018-19 Activity and Impact Report draws heavily on the SMP’s formal reporting to the Scottish Government for the core funding it receives. We are always happy to share all this information publicly.
Read the 2018-19 Activity and Impact Report here
Our Activity and Impact report includes the full external independent expert review of the SMP’s work, conducted this year by the Corra Foundation. We are pleased to share this excellent detailed feedback and strong endorsement from our independent examiners.
It also includes the feedback we have had from members, partners and key stakeholders over the last 12 months, and a detailed report of our lobbying and advocacy activity.
2018-19 Highlights
2018-19 was another busy and productive year for the Scotland Malawi Partnership.
It began by welcoming His Excellency, Arthur Peter Mutharika, President of Malawi, to the UK. While the President was in London for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the SMP organised a meeting for the President to address the Malawi All-Party Parliamentary Group in the House of Lords.
After CHOGM, the President spent almost a week in Scotland, with the SMP supporting a series of events with members and in the Scottish Parliament.
The SMP hosted its own event with the President in which 175 members, including many friends in the Malawi diaspora community, were able to come together to meet the President. Six members had the opportunity to present their work and a further sixty had their links with Malawi profiled in a special hard-back book the SMP published as a gift for the President.
Also in April, the SMP supported Josephine Mphango to be the Partnership’s Youth Ambassador at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. She was trained and supported in this role to record videos and publish blogs giving a young Malawian’s perspective of CHOGM 2018. We established a social media platform for Josephine to share her views and created an opportunity for her to directly ask a question of the President of Malawi about youth leadership in the House of Lords.
During the summer months, the SMP supported two Ministerial visits, hosting roundtables on gender equality and agriculture and irrigation for members to speak with the visiting Malawian Ministers.
Other visitors to Scotland from Malawi supported by the SMP in the summer included a choir of 30 girls from the Edinburgh Girls’ High School in Mzuzu, who performed every night of the Edinburgh Military Tattoo with a choir from their partner school Mary Erskine.
The Partnership’s Faith Links Conference brought together members with church partnerships or links with faith-based NGO’s for active networking, followed by a Faith Links Roadtrip to take this engagement to members in Fife, Aberdeen, Argyll and Bute, and the Borders.
In May-June, the SMP also organised and hosted a series of Chichewa Language and Cultural Workshops with, for the first time, a live webstream for members to take part remotely.
At the end of the September the SMP and MaSP co-hosted, with the Scottish and Malawi governments and parliaments, the Malawi and Scotland: Together for Sustainable Development Conference in Lilongwe. This conference brought together 350 individuals across Malawi and Scotland to explore how best to work together in this coming chapter to help implement the Global Goals Partnership Agreement.
The Partnership’s 2018 AGM on the 6th October was another memorable day, with hundreds of members joining us at the University of Glasgow to share information about their own inspiring connections with Malawi.
In October we welcomed the Vice-President of Malawi to address the Malawi All-Party Parliamentary Group in Westminster. Following this, through December-March our Malawi APPG had a series of meetings as part of its joint-inquiry with the Africa and Migration APPGs, representing members’ concerns about visa applications for those applying from Africa. These included meetings with the Immigration Minister and the Chief Independent Inspector, as well as public and expert evidence sessions.
The 28th February was a real highlight in the year. With hundreds of young Scots joining us in McEwan Hall for our Youth Congress and, that evening, we hosted the Scottish Premiere of the award winning The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind which is filmed and set in Malawi.
