The Scotland Malawi Partnership (SMP) is a charity and umbrella organisation which exists to inspire the people and organisations of Scotland to be involved with Malawi in an informed, coordinated and effective way, to the benefit of both nations. 

In 2010 the SMP is aiming to further expand its coverage and impact by engaging with all 32 local authorities in Scotland.  As part of this process the SMP is eager to involve all key stakeholders in the field and invite comment on their strategic plan as they look to move this exciting engagement project forward through the rest of the year.

Scotland has a large number of cultural links with Malawi which date back over 150 years to David Livingstone's travels in Africa.  The historic bilateral civil society relationship between Scotland and Malawi is one based not on 'donors' and 'recipients' but on long-standing, mutually-beneficial community to community, family to family and people to people links.

The Scotland Malawi Partnership has over 300 members all of whom have their own Malawi work/connections; it also engages and supports almost 200 Scottish schools with Malawi links, around 150 Malawians in Scotland, and about 250 Malawian organisations and individuals with Scottish links in Malawi. 

In 2010 the SMP is aiming to further expand its coverage and impact by working with all 32 local authorities in Scotland.  Recognising the current financial situation facing local authorities, the engagement will look to initially involve only limited commitment from the authorities, but in the long term it is hoped the initiative will lead to three key outcomes:

1)        Scottish local authorities are more aware of, and more involved with, Scotland's civil society relationship with Malawi: in time this will allow for greater local support for new and existing links with Malawi;

2)       Local-level government, and the decentralisation of power, in Malawi is strengthened through strategic links with Scottish local authorities (capacity increased, expertise shared, skills transferred, etc);

3)       Awareness of Scotland's links with Malawi is strengthened throughout Scotland.

Work on the engagement project so far has included a Needs Analysis survey of Scottish local authorities, and detailed discussions with Glasgow City Council and Edinburgh City Council - the two local authorities presently leading the way on engagement with Malawi.  Results from the survey identified a strong appetite from respondents to learn more about the various links between Scotland and Malawi (particularly those active in their own area), and a desire to become more involved in this special relationship.  These results, combined with the input from Glasgow and Edinburgh, have gone on to help develop an initial strategic plan for the SMP's local authority engagement in 2010.

The SMP is now eager to involve other key stakeholders in the field and invite comment as they look to move this exciting engagement project forward through the rest of the year.  So, if you or your organisation would be keen to feed into this process then the SMP would be delighted to hear from you and can be contacted by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

For further information, please visit the Scotland Malawi Partnership website.