European Union

National level

In accordance with relevant provisions of the Cotonou Agreement, the EU and the Government of Malawi signed a CSP and NIP for the period 2008–2013 in Lisbon on 9 December 2007. The CSP and NIP are multi-annual programming documents which define the priority sectors of EU assistance to Malawi, in line with Malawi's own growth and development strategy.

The CSP sets out agriculture and food security and regional interconnection as the two focal sectors for cooperation between the two parties. It says furthermore that general budgetary support shall foster continued efforts to consolidate and improve Malawi's macroeconomic situation, strengthen its public finance management systems and assist in the carrying out of policy reforms in the education and health areas. To this comes cooperation in a number of non-focal sectors, which include governance, an Economic Partnership Agreement, HIV/AIDS, gender, and institutional capacity-building. The EU specifies specific projects and programmes in annual action plans, which are linked as closely as possible to the actions and expenditure plans of the Government of Malawi.

The current NIP signed by the EU and the Government of Malawi provides €436 million to Malawi as programmable financial resources and an additional €15 million to cover unforeseen needs, such as emergency assistance. These resources come from the 10th European Development Fund. In 2009 and 2010 the EU allocated from a special facility, the Vulnerability-Flex Mechanism (V-FLEX), an additional €44 million to Malawi as support for coping with the consequences of the economic and financial crises. Furthermore, the EU allocated €17.9 million to Malawi from the Food Facility under the EU Budget, and another €10.6 million from the sugar budget line. Yet other sectors, such as energy, water and sanitation, are financed under the EU-Africa infrastructure partnership and investments from the European Investment Bank.

The EU and Malawi follow up their cooperation in the form of mid-term reviews and joint annual reports.

Regional level

At the regional level, EU-ACP cooperation is detailed in Regional Strategy Papers and Regional Indicative Programmes (RIPs). The RIPs aim at supporting regional integration agendas, strengthening regional cooperation and supporting the integration of the region into the global economy. Malawi is part of the Eastern and Southern African and Indian Ocean programme, to which the EU provides €645 million during the period 2008–2013.

Intra-ACP level

At the intra-ACP level, the EU and the ACP States likewise detail their cooperation in Multi-Annual Indicative Programmes. In the current programme, which runs for the period 2008–2013, the intra-ACP allocation totals € 2.7 billion. Intra-ACP cooperation benefits many or all ACP States and is guided mainly by the principles of subsidiarity and complementarity to national and regional programmes.