Background: The majority of documented social accountability initiatives to date have been 'tactical' in nature, employing single-tool, mostly community-based approaches. This article provides lessons from a 'strategic', multitool, multi-level social accountability project: UNICEF's 'Social Accountability for Every Woman Every Child' intervention in Malawi. Methods: The project targeted the national, district and community levels. Three Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) were engaged to carry out interventions using various tools to generate evidence and political advocacy at one or more levels. This article focuses on one of the social accountability methodsthe bwalo forum (a meeting based on a traditional Malawian method of dialogue). A detailed political economy analysis was conducted by one of the co-authors using qualitative methods including interviews and group discussions. The authors conducted incountry consultations and analysed secondary data provided by the CSOs. Results: The political economy analysis highlighted several ways in which CSO partners should modify their work plans to be more compatible with the project context. This included shifting the advocacy and support focus, as well as significantly expanding the bwalo forums. Bwalos were found to be an important platform for allowing citizens to engage with duty bearers at the community and district levels, and enabled a number of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health issues to be resolved at those levels. The project also enabled learning around participant responses as intermediate project outcomes.

The paper discusses participation of the public in local councils in Malawi in the context that Malawi has had no councillors since 2005. The paper is based on empirical evidence collected through a largely qualitative research design. It adopts a case study approach focusing on Lilongwe District Council and Balaka Town Council. The study has established that the absence of councillors in Malawi has negatively affected the participation of the public in local public machinery. Analysis of the empirical evidence indicates that in the absence of councillors, (i) local people are detached from councils because of a political leadership vacuum that has been created, (ii) withdrawal of formal policy spaces has culminated in the weakening of voices from below, (iii) power struggles among the actors sitting in for councillors impairs them for motivating people to participate in local public life at the council, and (iv) the interim participatory structures have ended up being patronage oriented rather than community-serving oriented as envisaged. The paper holds the view that, in the absence of councillors, participation in local public affairs is largely limited to the people that are connected to the influential political and social figures and networks.

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