In order to ensure expenditure by government and donors is consistent with national development objectives, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the level of expenditure and how it is spent. A key tool to assess the consistency of government and donor expenditure with policy objectives such as the sustainability and related objectives in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy MGDS) III, National Agriculture Implementation Plan NAIP), National Agriculture Policy (NAP) and related sectors is Public Expenditure Reviews (PERs).  These involve the analysis of allocation and management of public expenditures and may cover all government expenditure or focus on a few priority sectors such as agriculture, water, land, infrastructure and others.

The Government of Malawi undertook a Public Expenditure Review of Malawi’s Environment and Disaster Risk Management Sectors in 2014 covering the period of 2006-2012.  This particular exercise will focus specifically on the expenditure on ENRM sector with particular reference on expenditure on Agriculture with respect to National Agricultural Investment Plan (NAIP) and the new National Agricultural Policy (NAP). In effect, it will complement the PER of 2014 where it was found that only about 1% of government public expenditure was made in the Environment and Natural Resources Management (ENRM) sectors with a smaller amount of 0.9% going to the districts. The intention is to, among others, find out how much public expenditure has changed in the ENRM sectors in the past 8 years and in addition highlight the need for increased budget allocation to the agriculture and natural resources and related sectors that are the backbone of the country’s economy.