Girls’ education and sexual regulation in Malawi

Silver, Rachel; Morley, Alyssa

doi:10.1080/09540253.2021.1989383

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Austerity enacted through ODA reduction was framed as a nationalist response to domestic debt, even as the pandemic, and the global economic crisis it spurred, rendered countries like Malawi increasingly isolated. From our previous research, we know that Malawian aid workers are deeply aware of the contingency of ODA, and of the fickle nature of funders who call for sustainability while constantly shifting emphases (Morley, 2019a; Silver, 2024). The pairing of COVID‐19 and FCDO cuts, however, shone new light on the precarity of development programming.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Malawi, mid‐level workers significantly influence how policies and programmes roll out. Whether it is teachers co‐opting girl‐focused NGO activities to regulate girls in line with sexual mores (Pot, 2019; Silver and Morley, 2022), civil servants extending policy‐making timelines to reclaim state authority (Silver, 2019), or NGO workers using human rights programming to maintain the political status quo (Englund, 2006), attention to mid‐level actors reveals key efforts to reclaim or retain moral authority through, and often at odds with, aid projects.…”

Section: The Moral Economies Of International Aidmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Undoing Aid: UK Aid Cuts, Development Relationships and Resourcing Futures in Malawi

Morley,

Silver

2023

Development and Change

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The decision of the United Kingdom government to reduce its Official Development Assistance by £ 4.6 billion in 2020 was framed by its proponents as a nationalist response to a domestic financial crisis. This Conservative‐led austerity measure triggered the early closure of hundreds of aid projects globally. Concerned British politicians equated the cuts to moral failures as humanitarian and civil society actors claimed the lost funding would devastate the world's most vulnerable populations. In the vast space between British funders and the so‐called ‘beneficiaries’ of aid is a diverse cadre of mid‐level actors ‘doing’ and, in this case, ‘un‐doing’ development programming. This article examines their experiences in prematurely closing British‐funded projects in one postcolonial context, Malawi. Drawing upon semi‐structured interviews, the article explores the emotional, material and relational consequences of austerity. It builds on Didier Fassin's theorization of moral economies to argue that the timing and approach of this funding withdrawal violated the accepted moral economies of aid, breaching obligations between Malawian mid‐level aid workers and community members (including family) as well as among institutions. It concludes by considering how this particular rupture to the relational infrastructure of aid has prompted demands for recalibrated resourcing futures in Malawi.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%