Malawi

Malawi enacted the laws on old age, disability, and survivors, sickness and maternity, and unemployment starting in year 2000, 36 years after independence in 1964. Only the work injury regulatory framework was introduced before independence. In 2005, a social assistance programme named Improved Livelihoods through Public Works was introduced to create temporary jobs as a means of income transfer and to build economic infrastructure. As at 2017, the programme had 122,400 household participants. The other social assistance programme operational in Malawi is the Mchinji Social Cash Transfer, which aims to reduce poverty, hunger and starvation in all households living in the pilot area who are ultra-poor and at the same time labour constrained. The programme also aims to increase school enrolment and attendance of children living in target group households. As at 2015, the programme had 170,000 households receiving a cash transfer of US$28.79 every month. Malawi has a national coordination agency, which manages programmes and coordinates government efforts, in place. Social assistance expenditure was 0.41 percent of GDP, translating to social assistance spending per poor person per year of US$2.08 in 2015.