Nurtured from Above and Growing from the Roots: Social Investment Funds and Decentralization in Zambia and Malawi

Abstract

Abstract Social investment funds aim at the provision of social infrastructure through community involvement and participatory procedures. This paper focuses on two specific social investment funds, those in Zambia and Malawi. Both have a strong commitment to participation by the community, signified particularly in direct disbursement to those communities. They aim to work through the field units of government administration in a decentralized manner instead of creating parallel structures. The Zambian social fund has decentralized its procedures to a considerable degree, and it is a role model in this respect. The Malawian social fund is not such a powerful catalyst for organizational change, as it is confronted with much stronger residues of authoritarianism. Nevertheless, like the Zambian fund, it is an effective and cheap mechanism for delivery of social infrastructure. Both social investment funds are resisting merger, with comprehensive decentralization programmes aiming to bring the district administration under an elected local authority that Zambia and Malawi have both initiated. This paper argues that this resistance is rational. It pleads for an organic growth of decentralization instead of legislating it into existence. The experience of these social investment funds show that it is more fruitful to graft the decentralized procedures of social funds on to existing institutions than to embark on comprehensive decentralization programmes.