The Evaluation covers the component “Response to Malawi Prison Crisis” within the regional project XSSW23 - Supporting Minimum Standards for HIV, Health and Rights in Prison Populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Anachronistic legislative and policy instruments, institutional overcrowding and food insecurity, and a deprivation of individual health and human rights plague the institutions and population of Malawi’s prison system. Consequently, prisoners continue to fall ill, and in some cases die, due to substandard and/or inefficient health systems and services, particularly including those addressing infectious disease, food production and security.

National laws and practices are misaligned to the principles and standards established by the UN Standard Minimum Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners (Also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules) and their related health and human rights instruments.

To effect sustainable change, a project was developed and implemented not only an immediate response to acute, health-oriented crises that are affecting existing prison population in Malawi, but also to improved prison service-wide systems, strategies, and capacities to contain and/or mitigate the chronic harms related to institutional overcrowding.

The focus was at the service and institutional levels. The project was built upon the existing and prior programmes of work implemented by UNODC addressing prison reform, health, and human rights in prison systems of Sub-Saharan Africa, to help Malawi arrive at a sustainable solution to her chronic challenges including extreme prison overcrowding by focusing on reform of the prison service systems, structures and capacities.