D.Cur. (Psychiatric Nursing) / Malawi has a population of 9 million people with AIDS the leading cause of death in the age group of 20 • 40. The HIV prevalence rate, estimated at 23% in urban areas and 8% in rural areas, is one of the highest in the world (AIDSEC, 1994: I). Evaluation of counselling practices showed poor results with counsellors feeling ineffective and inadequate. Patients are mostly tested on medical indication but testing is increasingly refused by patients who do not see the benefit of knowing their HIV status. The counselling practice as it is known in the Western world is a foreign concept for patients living in rural Malawi. The high stigma of AIDS complicates support of the patients. The goal of this research study is to describe a model of counselling that would meet the needs of an AIDS patient in a rural community in Malawi. A qualitative research design that is explorative, descriptive and contextually specific to rural Malawi was used for the study. In order to describe a counselling model it was important to understand the illness experience of HIV reactive patients. The patients are seen in group context congruent with the African culture and therefore the experience of the primary care giver of AIDS patients is also examined. The experience of counsellors of AIDS patients is explored as the other major factor in the phenomenon examined. In the first phase of the study in-depth phenomenological interviews were conducted with identified groups. Focus interviews were conducted with a hundred AIDS patients to identify the needs and resources of the patients and to compile a demographic profile. Focus group discussions were conducted with counsellors for more complete comprehension. Data analysis and a literature control were undertaken. In the second phase of the study theory generation was used in order to develop a counselling model for AIDS patients and guidelines for implementing the model were generated. Based on the results of the analysis the major concept enable was identified as the essence of a model for counselling AIDS patients in rural Malawi.

The department of agricultural extension services (DAES) has been the central implementing agency responsible for agricultural extension services in Malawi. However, since 1990s many changes have taken place leading to the development of new national extension policy, which was launched in 2000, under the heading Agricultural Extension in the New Millennium: Towards Pluralistic and Demand-driven Services in Malawi. This is an opportunity to bring the control of extension closer to the grassroots community. One of the biggest challenges in operationalising the new system is the facilitation of farmers’ involvement at all stages. This may not be achieved without appropriate functional structures from the grassroots community. And in light of the pluralism in extension service delivery, co-ordination of agricultural extension has become another challenge extension has to deal with. The aim of this study was to investigate the level of farmers’ involvement in agricultural extension services, search for an appropriate institutional linkage structure for effective participatory and coordinated agricultural extension as well as identify major factors affecting coordination of pluralistic agricultural extension services in Nkhotakota district. A total of 135 respondents were involved in group interview sessions allowing extensive interaction and discussion before individuals were requested to record their viewpoints regarding various alternatives in documents (questionnaires) prepared for that purpose and which were subsequently analysed. The survey results reveal that agricultural extension has not been very participatory and the level of farmers’ involvement is very low. What is positive, however, is the high degree of willingness of farmers to be involved in agricultural extension. This is an opportunity that extension organisations must take advantage of. The survey found wide scale support (87.2 percent) for the necessity of a proposed community linkage structure, which, as a mouthpiece, represents the community, coordinates its interests and programmes and functions in partnership with the service provider(s). This allows for a partnership relationship that lead towards the empowerment of the communities to take ownership of the development process.. There is support also for the identified principles regarding this proposed linkage structure. These include a clear differentiation between the coordinating and operational functions and a positioning of the structures as close to the grassroots community as possible, but not to the level of unnecessary duplication and consequently poor coordination. There is general agreement that coordination should not be limited to one commodity or even agriculture, but should be all embracing. Some reservation in this regard can be attributed to fear of agriculture being marginalised. For a country that relies predominantly on agriculture care should be taken to ensure that this does not happen. In general, farmers are more supportive of the principles of effective linkage structures than the service providers. According to the results, coordination of extension among service providers is still poor, but is likely to increase as the policy of pluralism and decentralization continues to unfold. Copyright / Dissertation (MSc Agric (Agricultural Extension))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural development / unrestricted

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / Insecure access and limited rights to land are major factors contributing to poverty among rural women (Ellis,2000; Havnevik et al,2007). Despite that, rural women’s livelihoods are directly linked to land; they generally lack secure access to productive land. In acknowledging the inequalities in terms of land ownership among Malawians, the government of Malawi introduced a land reform project known as the Community Based Rural Land Development Project (CBRLDP) (GoM, 2002a). This study aims at assessing the effects of group-based titling of the CBRLDP on creating secure access to land and livelihoods of women beneficiaries.Using qualitative research design, methods such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and questionnaire surveys were used as sources of primary data and project reports while CBRLDP programme planning documents and evaluation reports as sources of secondary data were consulted. While the data shows that secure access to land could create women’s sustainable livelihoods,the study found that access to land and the livelihoods generated by the CBRLDP are gendered, for instance,there are more male beneficiaries as compared to women. With regard to women’s land rights, this study shows that women are still struggling in claiming their rights to land. Furthermore, the study found that the roles of traditional leaders in securing access to land and protecting women’s land rights within the CBRLDP remain unclear. The study also reveals that access to land alone is not enough for the creation of women’s sustainable livelihoods.

The conventional method for studying media systems has been to analyse the relationship between media and politics, based on Hallin and Mancini's (2004) seminal research Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Their approach automatically places the nation-state as the key unit of analysis to understand why media systems are the way they are and why they change. Research that has advanced this endogenous method of analysis in countries outside of the Western, democratically advanced context, has brought to light the importance of including external factors in studying media systems. Building off this analytical direction, this thesis introduces three new external factors; foreign aid, the conditionalities attached to foreign aid, and the role of externally created Pan-African media policy agreements Using a case study of Malawi, a small aid-dependent country in Southeast Africa, this research interrogates these three factors to reveal that foreign aid is a coercive foreign policy tool that has been used for manipulating change and shaping the type of media Malawi has. Based on the country's recent transformation from its authoritarian populist past towards the dominant liberal media model in 2012, this research also reassesses Hallin and Mancini's convergence thesis, which claimed that most countries are 'naturally' heading towards the dominant liberal media model. Therefore, the general conclusions drawn from this thesis indicate that media systems analysis is best accomplished through detailed empirical case studies, which not only rely on historical insights, but synthesise the role that media, politics and foreign intervention play collectively, especially in the era of neoliberal capitalism. By moving beyond the parameters of the nation-state in this way, and examining what external forces that are extraterritorial to the nation-state, it is hoped that media systems researchers will engage more critically with factors that are opaque, and view variables such as foreign intervention as instrumental in future media system research.

Floor crossing was an unknown phenomenon in Malawi until the re-emergence of multiparty politics in 1994. Since then the number of MPs crossing the floor in the Malawi National Assembly has steadily increased from around twelve in 1994 to more than sixty in 2005. This practice has continued even today. However, the biggest incident of floor crossing took place in 2005 when the State President, Dr Bingu wa Mutharika, under the United Democratic Front (UDF) decided to abandon the party that sponsored him into office to form his own, the Democratic Progressive Party in February, 2005. Following him were several opposition MPs, a move which sparked a lot of tension in the National Assembly. The purpose of this study was to investigate political factors contributing to this phenomenon, and it was established that, among other factors, institutional weaknesses of political parties and gaps in the Constitution contributed significantly to floor crossing. / Political Science / M.A. (African Politics)

Malawi reverted to multiparty politics in 1993.1 A new Republican Constitution,2 (the Constitution) with a Bill of Rights was provisionally adopted on 18 May 1994 and it entered into force on 18 May 1995.3 Chapter 3 thereof deals with fundamental principles upon which the Constitution is founded and Principles of National Policy (PNP). Section 13(c) of the Constitution which falls under the PNP deals with health. It is to the effect that ‘the State shall actively promote the welfare and development of the people of Malawi by progressively adopting and implementing policies and legislation aimed at achieving adequate healthcare, commensurate with the health needs of Malawian society and international standards of healthcare’. According to section 14 of the Constitution, PNP are only directory in nature. Courts are obliged to have regard to them in the interpretation and application of the Constitution or any other law or in the determination of the validity of executive decisions. In the light of the foregoing, arguably, the right to health is not justiciable under the Constitution. / Thesis (LLM (Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa)) -- University of Pretoria, 2010. / A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Law University of Pretoria, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Masters of Law (LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa). Prepared under the supervision of Prof. Ben K. Twinomugisha of the Faculty of Law, University of Makerere. 2010. / http://www.chr.up.ac.za/ / Centre for Human Rights / LLM

Common beans are one of the most important food and cash crops for most Malawians. The insufficient production of the crop in the country coupled with low yields has made scientists give much interest to the crop so that they can address the constraints to the productivity problems. In this regard, breeders have been engaged in the development and release of improved varieties of common beans which in most cases are disease resistant, high yielding, drought resistant, and fast cooking. Therefore it is the interest of this study to find the reasons why productivity of the crop is still low despite the release of the improved varieties. The study adopted contingent valuation (CV), a method frequently used to assess willingnessto- pay of people for non-market goods or services and this was applied to assess farmer’s willingness-to-pay for the new improved bean seed varieties which are high yielding. Double bounded dichotomous choice with an open ended follow-up format was used to obtain the household’s willingness-to-pay. In addition; the study reviewed the existing dissemination channels of bean seed to make recommendations with regard to seed supply. Descriptive statistics from the 132 households interviewed shows that the structural constraints to seed acquisition are compounded by farmers’ poverty. Otherwise, most farmers are aware of the existence of improved varieties of common bean seed and perceive that with the use of this seed, productivity can improve hence willing to pay for the good. The study is 95% confident that mean price farmers are willing to pay for improved common bean seed is between MK 527.78 and MK 591.92. Three major existing informal dissemination channels of bean seed were discovered in the study areas. Therefore there is a need for government to work in collaboration with NGOs towards ensuring a formal supply system of bean seed characterised by vertically organised production and dissemination of tested and approved seed varieties, and using strict quality control rules, so that farmers can be assured of accessing improved seed varieties. This will increase the nation’s food security. / Dissertation (MSc Agric)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

The interplay between remarriage and fertility is among the most poorly documented subjects in sub-Saharan Africa, yet remarriage is one of the fundamental aspects of marriage dynamics in the region. Referring to classical demographic and statistical techniques, this research uses data collected since 1992 from Malawi Demographic and Health Surveys to establish the pattern and level of union dissolution and remarriage, and to assess the influence of remarriage on fertility preference and childbearing. The results reveal increasing stability of unions over time and a declining proportion of remarried women. The probability of experiencing first union dissolution within 15 years dropped from 45.9 to 40.0 per cent between 1992 and 2015, while the comparable likelihood of remarriage decreased from 36.1 to 27.7 per cent over the same interval duration. The effect of remarriage on the desire for more children is positive at advanced interval durations relative to the onset of first marriage. At shorter interval periods, where remarriage is relatively most recent, remarriage inhibits the desire for additional children. For example, in 2015, among women who first married 15-19 years before the survey, the odds of desiring another child were 4 per cent significantly higher among remarried women relative to their counterparts in intact unions. In contrast, for women who were married for 0-5 years, remarried women had 3 per cent lower olds of desiring another child. Furthermore, the childbearing pattern of remarried women is found to be distinct from that of women in intact unions. Remarried women give birth to more children sooner than their counterparts in intact unions, but eventually end up with fewer children. Indeed, the results show that in 2015, women in intact unions had 0.4 more children on average than their remarried counterparts. However, the difference in complete family size is steadily diminishing (difference of 1.5 in 2000), largely due to more marked fertility decline among women in intact unions. This trend, together with the long-term pattern of cumulated fertility differentials at younger reproductive ages, and current fertility disparities over the past two decades, strongly reveals that a new regime, where remarried women will end up with higher complete family size than those in intact unions, is emerging.

Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of a Master of Management in Public Policy at the Graduate School of Public & Development Management, University of the Witwatersrand. / In the last two decades, a number of discourses on democratic governance and development in the developing countries position citizen participation as a public accountability mechanism. Most countries have adopted decentralization governance reforms to enable local citizens to influence government policies and services. Literature on decentralization shows weak coherence on how public accountability works to achieve local development and democracy consolidation. Hence, the research study proposes a citizen participation model that should be used in investigating citizen based public accountability in policy making. The evaluation study intends to measure the extent to which citizen participation influences public accountability in local policy making in Malawi; using an evaluation framework based on the suggested citizen participation model. The evaluation investigated the influence of citizen participation in the making of the Lilongwe City Development Strategy (2009). It used qualitative research design and a case study of Ngwenya, a peri-urban area in Lilongwe City. The study used a clarificative evaluation approach. The study found that there is poor citizen participation to influence public accountability in local policy making in Malawi. The findings depict that the conceptualization of citizen participation model should underpin policy principles and associate laws to frame contextual base that helps decentralization benefits reach the local citizens. The report suggests that to improve public accountability through citizen participation primarily there should be: i) clear social, constitutional or political contracts between local government and citizens; ii) adherence to democratic governance; and iii) consistent alignment of programme implementation to assumed contexts in their design.

While Malawi’s Farm Input Subsidy Program (FISP) has been the focus of numerous studies on the impacts of subsidies on farm-household income, yields, fertilizer use and adoption, there still has not been much empirical work quantifying the program’s effects on maize supply and demand. In this study, we use the econometric framework proposed by Roberts and Schlenker (2013) to identify the effect of FISP on maize production as well as supply and demand price elasticities in Malawi. We use national aggregate data and find that the program has increased aggregate maize supply. Our results show that FISP has had an aggregate effect across years of about 3,746,870 metric tons from 2006-2013. We also find that the program has increased farmers’ responsiveness to changes in fertilizer prices. However, our estimates suggest that higher prices lead to higher quantities of fertilizer demanded, a relationship that is not consistent with economic theory.