As aid shrinks and donor priorities shift, civil society organizations are being forced to rethink how they survive, adapt, and continue serving communities. Dan Banik speaks with Tikhala Itaye about funding cuts, local ownership, social entrepreneurship, gender equality, accountability, and why Malawi’s development future may depend on new forms of innovation and collaboration.
As traditional aid budgets shrink and donor priorities shift, civil society organizations across Malawi are being forced to rethink how they work, survive, and serve communities. In this conversation, Dan Banik speaks with Tikhala Itaye, a human rights lawyer and public health specialist, and the Founder and Executive Director of HeR Liberty, a young women-led organization in Malawi working to advance health, education, and economic empowerment for young people, especially adolescent girls and young women.
The episode explores the changing relationship between international NGOs, local civil society organizations, and the Malawian state. Tikhala reflects on the long-standing inequalities in the aid system, where local organizations often do much of the frontline work while receiving only a small share of available funding. She and Dan also discuss how civil society groups are responding to cuts by exploring social entrepreneurship, domestic resource mobilization, coalition-building, and new partnerships with government.
The conversation highlights Malawi’s broader development challenges, including rising prices, political uncertainty, gender inequality, youth unemployment, and the urgent need for more accountable leadership. At the same time, Tikhala points to sources of hope: community resilience, local innovation, the strength of women’s rights movements, progress in health, and the growing determination among Malawians to design solutions from within.
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[Dan Banik]
Tikhala, I met you just a few days ago and I was super impressed with all those analytical perspectives you had.
Welcome to my show.
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[Tikhala Itaye]
Thank you so much.
It's so exciting to be on this show.
I have been listening to a lot of your shows, so it's exciting to be in conversation with you today, Dan.
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[Dan Banik]
So, we don't really have a plan about what we're going to talk about.
But let's start with our beloved Malawi.
That's because we're here in Blantyre.
And, you know, I've been coming here for two decades and I'm still learning every day.
How would you describe Malawi or the development or the lack of it taking place here from a civil society perspective?
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[Tikhala Itaye]
I think the biggest thing is the funding cuts, right?
Because we're all feeling the cuts.
And secondly, just politics.
There's a lot of politics at play right now.
You feel uncertain about the future, uncertainty about leadership in the country.
I think having to see that with the previous political leadership, we just had the appointment earlier of Peter Mutharika. He was there the previous other term and then he's back so there's a bit of a uncertainty on like are we really gonna have change or it's just gonna be the same old kind of system and challenges we faced before so political leadership has brought a lot of uncertainty, especially because it's not someone new.
And I think lastly would be just the economy.
Prices are rising like crazy.
I mean, we are at the place where we're paying for fuel at 6,000 kwacha per litre.
Everyone is feeling that crunch.
You know, salaries are not increasing, but everything else around you is.
So, we're really at a place of uncertainty, Dan.
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[Dan Banik]
Yeah, I've been actually quite struck by how expensive things have become.
Like I went to the restaurant the other day, my favorite restaurant here, 21 Grill.
I looked at the menu and I felt like I couldn't afford it.
And this has never happened to me in Malawi.
But from a civil society perspective, what do you think was working?
I mean, you could always blame the political leadership, the lack of continuity.
A lot of my colleagues here talk about accidental leaders, recycle leaders.
We've often talked about lack of young people in the leadership group.
It's usually the same old men, you know, and some women.
But let's focus on the civil society perspective.
What do you think has worked and what are you worried about in terms of funding?
I mean, without money, it's very difficult.
But let's say you did have that money.
What do you think has worked in that civil society space in Malawi?
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[Tikhala Itaye]
I would say one thing that has been working within the civil society space is issues around accountability, right?
I think civil society organizations play such a strong role when it comes to holding service providers accountable, depending on what sector you're working in, or holding government leaders accountable on certain development issues that you're working on.
In the work that I do and the organization that I'm leading with Her Liberty, I think for us, I mean, in the past few years, funding has been great, right?
You get different development agencies, donor agencies, foundations partnering with you, aligning with some of the work that you're doing.
And then you get to a place where you start thinking about doing development differently.
I think one thing about civil society organizations, they're always the ones on the ground, right, in community.
And they truly understand what is needed on the ground and designing projects that will meet that.
the issues on the ground.
And for me, having to really think through development where we're designing things, where we have a people-centered approach and a human-centered approach has been a core thing for civil society organizations.
What you have seen with kind of other kind of big INGOs, development agencies, there is that kind of detachment for community-level work.
And most of them obviously do depend on civil society organizations that are working locally.
So I think for me, that's a win for civil society organizations.
And I think secondly would be around, well, I think now with funding cuts, everyone is trying to figure out
sustainability and financial sustainability we've now been exploring social entrepreneurship and I think this is something that many civil society organizations in the past because you were getting a lot of donor support and funding is not something we really thought as important for sustainability, but I think now with the funding cuts we're all now
more agile to kind of make that switch and start looking and exploring into diversifying our funding and look into social entrepreneurship models so I think another thing that makes civil society organization is the agility right being able to explore models or bringing in more revenue whereas you know other kind of government institutions it's not that easy when they're going through some sort of budget cuts or anything like that so here's another perk on civil society organizations
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[Dan Banik]
This country, Malawi, is a laboratory for a lot of experiments, development experiments.
And this is a country that has so many civil society organizations.
You have local organizations, national, international organizations.
And one of the themes that we explored in the roundtable a few days ago here has to do with how local organizations often do a lot of the hard work.
At least that was one of the points I raised, and I think a lot of others agreed with that, whereas they don't seem to get the kind of attention
Maybe the attention, the praise, they take all the risks, and certainly they don't get enough money.
There's been this movement internationally that international organizations have most of the money, whereas the local organizations take all the risk and do most of the work.
And that sharing of revenue is a bit unfair.
And you are aware that there's been this movement, localization, that donors in the old days, in the heyday of aid, should ideally directly disperse to local organizations rather than through these other middlemen.
So, I'd like you to reflect on that, whether you think that division of labor or the revenue has been unjust.
The second thing is, of course, this new scenario that we are in.
I don't think, I'm being a bit pessimistic even though I try to be optimistic, I don't think we are going to go back to the heyday of aid.
And you've heard me say this before, that I think we should be thinking about new avenues.
It is the age of possibility.
We can't, particularly in a country like Malawi, expect the donors to go back to providing generous amounts of aid.
I don't think aid is dead, but I think it's a new world.
There has to be different sources of revenue.
So I thought it was really interesting what you just said that you're looking at social entrepreneurship.
So if you can provide a few sort of details as to how that would work out, what would be those new revenue streams?
So firstly, you know, the relationship between international and local NGOs, and then secondly, in terms of diversifying the revenue bit.
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[Tikhala Itaye]
I think, firstly, let me kind of just reflect on what you said, right, in terms of how aid coming in and working with international INGOs and civil society organizations, local NGOs, underground, there has always been that issue where, you know, INGOs are getting a huge chunk of funding and only, like, less than 1% is going to local organizations.
I think this has been...
a challenge for many years and a lot of people have been speaking out on it.
It is very unjust because a lot of people on the ground are doing the work for very little funding.
I think I can speak to a situation where a particular NGO won a huge grant from a foundation of about $1 million and then they were giving small grants to community-based organizations in different countries between 5,000 to 10,000.
you know, dollars.
And then you see the salary where the ED of this big NGO is getting 100,000 annually, you know, but the people on the ground are the ones doing most of the work.
And even with that 5,000, 10,000 seed money you're getting, only 5% can be in direct costs, you know, going to your overhead.
So there is definitely inequalities around that.
I do think it's still happening.
There has been a lot of concepts being thrown around about DDD doing development differently.
There is some sort of change, some institutions are being intentional about funding community-based organizations or local civil society organizations directly.
So I do think there's a bit of a shift happening and recognizing that the people on the ground should be invested in more and supported more and so forth.
In terms of the social entrepreneurship bit and having to explore different funding avenues, it's not an easy process.
I think there's a huge mindset shift, right?
You've been so used to getting funding and that was, you know, you write a grant proposal and that's it.
But now with social entrepreneurship, you have to be a bit business minded, right?
But how do you do business when you're supposed to be some sort of nonprofit organization?
So
there is a lot of work of trying to figure out, you know, what business model can work for this organization in terms of bringing revenue that can still support development of some sort.
I think for us, with the work that we do with women and economic empowerment, I think it was much easier to kind of just look into the work that we're doing and
I agree farming with the mothers and the women that we work with in Zamba to kind of see that as a root of whatever we farm, how do we sell those produce and whatever we make a share goes to the mothers and the women and also to the organization.
I think that was a bit much easier for us to explore, but I think with other organization, it's really challenging.
It's not easy, right?
But for you to get into social partnership and start some sort of business model within your NGO, you need the capital.
You know, where are you going to get a capital if you're an NGO before, right?
I think there are challenges there.
Banks in Malawi don't make it easy for NGOs to get some sort of capital loan or anything like that to support ventures like that.
So...
Honestly, I don't have the answer in terms of what models that other people could really explore.
But I do think there is a need to support NGOs who are looking to set up some sort of social entrepreneurship in terms of how do they identify capital support, you know.
How can they switch into business models that can support the development work?
I think there's an area there that needs to be explored because Malawi has got a lot of NGOs, like you said, and a lot of them are closing down because of the challenge of trying to make that switch to sustain all the work that they've been doing.
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[Dan Banik]
Sometimes I've felt over the years that there's a division of labor between the government here and the NGOs.
The private sector is small, so there isn't that much of this corporate social responsibility.
I've been a bit upset with some of the media coverage.
It seems a small company can buy themselves a full page of very positive coverage by just offering some paint that the police can use to paint the zebra crossing.
It got me thinking, it's almost this idea of a division of labor where the government says, look, we have very little resources.
You pursue all avenues that is possible.
Get money from whoever you can to help us
provide the services that we are supposed to provide, but we don't have the money.
So you do that.
It could be education or health or gender, women's rights, looking at a particular sector that does not necessarily get either the attention from the government or the money.
You've been out of the country and you're back.
Do you see a change in terms of what the government is supposed to do and the civil society sector is supposed to do?
Has that evolved?
And perhaps it will evolve even more given that funding is drying up.
And this will affect also the government.
So suddenly both these spheres, civil society and the government, is going to get less from the donors, which means a lot of sectors risk being cut off.
And I wonder whether anything to do with gender would be the first to face that cutback.
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[Tikhala Itaye]
Oh, before I get into gender, I'm going to put I'm going to park that first.
But we're going to come back to it because gender is such a big thing.
But already, I think with all the issues you've brought up, it's obviously the last thing anyone's going to prioritize on on their budgets, recognizing the economic crisis we're in.
Okay, just reflecting from what you just said.
Firstly, I do think Malawi has got private sectors with money that we as, you know, for example, MRA is not doing enough of to kind of
tap into the tax, right, that big, large corporations are supposed to pay.
And I think just reflecting on the roundtable discussion I was really talking about, about tax evasion and large corporations, you're finding that right now a lot of private sectors that are being targeted are the small, medium companies and businesses, which are already struggling, not that much revenue to really pull in as much resources to support a lot of the government national budgets.
But then you're not seeing much about targeting large corporations and what they can do around corporate social responsibility.
And I think there needs to be more of that.
When I was studying in Namibia, Namibia has actually some sort of policy in place around a lot of companies have to put a certain percentage towards corporate social responsibility and there's like guidelines in which sectors it goes to and it's well coordinated.
I think in Malawi, there's nothing like that.
I do think that could be a game changer for a lot of big, large corporations that are avoiding tax and are too not doing anything around corporate social responsibility.
This is not to say that there are other big companies and banks that are doing a lot around CRC, but I think, you know, you see so much in news where, you know, either this big bank or this big company, the CEO, which has bought the latest Rolex,
or are traveling the world.
And you're thinking there's so much money in Malawi, but I just don't think it's being pulled into where it needs to go, right?
Like the MRA and pulling in revenue that goes towards the national budget, right?
There's definitely a deficit there.
I think the other thing is around how Malawi and the domestic resource mobilization strategy that's been in place for some time.
There is obviously a challenge of pulling in revenue to increase the national budget.
But then again, let's talk about the national budget recently when they announced that the constituency development funds are now 5 billion, right?
So here you are.
Yeah, 5 billion kwacha.
Oh, yes, kwacha, not dollars, right?
But here we are where we're like, oh, Malawi doesn't have enough money.
We're in debt.
You know, the MRA is not pulling enough revenue to support an increase in national budgets.
And then boom, you have this announcement of constituency development funds getting five billion per constituency for development at district level.
So we're all like, wow, you know, that's a big chunk of money.
But then you're thinking, OK, how is prioritization going to work?
Right.
Because there is a dependency of local leaders deciding on what and how that money is spent.
So there's obviously challenges around that.
I do think between civil society and government,
there needs to be a lot more social contracting.
I think recognizing that there is value add of civil society organization and the support, right, they bring in in service delivery and the work that they do on the ground.
I do think with like that type of funding going at a district level, there could be ways we can explore social contracting a bit more.
This was not a norm in the past, but you're slowly seeing that happening at district level, at national level, where
You're seeing governments slowly partner up with civil society organizations to implement particular programs with funding they have at a national level, at a government level.
So I do feel that could be a game changer with the current funding structures we have.
But of course, you know.
having to figure out what gets prioritized and how much funding goes to civil society and what goes to government.
I mean, there's a lot of politics at play when it comes to that as well.
So, I don't think it's also going to be, it's not an easy strategy or model to follow as well.
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[Dan Banik]
So, over the years, there's been this rather tense relationship between the government and civil society.
And it's tense when civil society is extracting that accountability that you were talking about, when civil society is criticizing the ruling party and the politicians for not doing their job or not doing it as well as they should.
But when there are sectors where the government feels it's win-win, you know, you, your colleagues in civil society are providing a service and maybe the government is indirectly getting some benefit out of it because people may think that it's the government doing it, then it's fine.
Then it's not very tense.
Do you see that to be a challenge, that government is sometimes envious of civil society?
Because I've heard many bureaucrats on Capitol Hill in Lilongwe saying, look at these civil society actors.
They are driving fancy Land Rovers and they have solar panels, beautiful bungalows in these posh areas of Lilongwe.
And look at us civil servants.
We don't even have per diem to travel on official business.
We have to go to these roundtables and workshops that you guys, the donors, are organizing in order to supplement our income.
Whereas the NGOs, they are bathing in money.
So there is this tension, I mean, jealousy, but also the fact, I mean, this is from the administrators.
The politicians are, you know, they don't like you criticizing them.
But the bureaucrats, they just feel that they have so, you know, their working conditions are so much more challenging than those for civil society.
Any thoughts there?
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[Tikhala Itaye]
Yes, I mean, tension is there, Dan.
I think when you think about, you know, like you said, where there's civil society organizations that are receiving funding larger than a department in the Ministry of Health, right?
That becomes a bit problematic, right?
Because I do think it also is creating parallel systems of some sort and power dynamics, right?
I'll never forget a call that I got recently from a government ministry where they called me and they said, oh, hi, Takala, you know, we the strategy just came out and we want to kind of launch it, but we're trying to get some funding to have a meeting.
And it just didn't feel right to me where I'm like, this is a whole director in this government department literally knocking on civil society organizations, their doors and knocking and be like, hey, we need money.
We have the strategy and we need to disseminate it.
Something is not right when your government is looking for resources from civil society organization.
The system is completely wrong there.
I think there's a need to do more on regulating levels of funding between civil society organization and government, because honestly, I just don't think there should be a situation where civil society organizations are getting more funding than government.
government entity I think they have been efforts to to try manage kind of those relationships and power dynamics the Ministry of Health recently Malawi came up with a partners framework where they brought different donors international government agencies that are in Malawi like nowhere the UK and FCDO and other civil society organizations working malawi and they all came together and they said you know what we need to find a way to work together transparency in terms of funding that's coming in as a government being able to present for example what our work plan is and getting different donors and civil society organization basically contributing towards that
And I think that framework is one that is helping manage those type of relationships, but also helping to see how different civil societies or donor agencies can really contribute towards what already has been set within a government ministry, like whatever strategic plan they put in place or whatever work plan that's put in place.
I think models like that are helping manage those type of dynamics, the power dynamics and the tension that's there.
Yes, of course, there will be envy from civil servants and civil society organizations that are driving the NGO cars and better per diems, better salaries.
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[Dan Banik]
There's also envy among civil society organizations, right?
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[Tikhala Itaye]
Oh, yes.
Oh, my goodness.
And so much competition, right?
Because also a funding cut, no one wants to really share that cake, right?
No one wants to cut a slice of that cake and work with other organizations.
So you are seeing it at both levels.
I think there's something that we really need to do to kind of regulate that because it is really damaging development in a certain way.
Because now everyone's thinking about me than actually the cause and work that we need to do to actually develop Malawi.
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[Dan Banik]
You know, whenever I drive around this country on any road,
It fascinates me that there are so many islands of excellence.
So, there would be a beautiful school building that is funded by some church or some donor, usually a church or any entity.
Beautiful buildings, very nicely kept gardens.
Everything is fantastic.
And then a kilometer later, two more kilometers later, another island of excellence.
And I've often felt in this country what one really needs is maybe not so much gap between these projects, that you don't have to be lucky to be chosen to live or you choose to live in a particular area which has a good school.
It should be like in many parts of the world, you know, all neighborhoods have relatively okay schools.
So if you could please reflect on the positives of development in Malawi, because this country often is portrayed, and this is something Malawians do too, not just the foreigners.
they often highlight the poverty.
They don't highlight the successes.
And we know in the health sector, in terms of HIV, there's been fantastic progress in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality.
I was here 2020, February, when the pandemic was just starting.
I was impressed with what Malawi was doing with buckets of water to wash our hands, that the Europeans, when I went back home to Norway, there was nobody tracking me.
There was no concern then.
There were also concerns when the pandemic started that a country like Malawi and many others on the continent would really have a huge problem.
And you did.
But Malawi succeeded.
There was a huge amount of success because one had experience with combating infectious disease.
There was experience.
Let's focus on what has been possible rather than just talking about all the negatives.
So what would you, in your field, in your organization's field, highlight as the success stories that the rest of the world needs to hear more about?
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[Tikhala Itaye]
that is so true dan i think when people think of Malawi you're like oh you're that small country on the African continent and so much poverty but there has been success I think Malawi’s tourism sector is incredible right and Malawi is doing more right now in investing in the tourism sector like lake Malawi, Mulanje mountain, Zomba mountain – these amazing tourism that I really do feel like Malawi is a gem you know and it's no one talks about that as much. I’ve had colleagues where you know i travel somewhere outside the country for a meeting and I’m telling them come visit Malawi and they're like no there's malaria and there's all these no I’m too nervous about that and they'll be like oh have you seen lake Malawi and they're like why
Wow, this is beautiful.
This is amazing.
I don't see enough of this.
So I do think the tourism sector is something worth highlighting.
The other thing would be, you know, you've mentioned some of the things in the health sector, I mean, you know, HIV issues, etc.
Rates have gone down.
You're even seeing issues related to maternal mortality.
There's been huge improvements.
And this has come from strong partnerships with development agencies, right?
Yes, fine, we're going through funding cuts from USAID that have happened.
But when you look at the past relationship that's been there between ministry and health and USAID, they've been remarkable health outcomes because of that partnership.
So, I think not to really talk about aid and development in a negative way, but having to really also reflect those positive relationships that have brought change in the country.
The other thing I would say with Malawi is, I mean, they call it the warm heart of Africa, right?
despite the challenges we're facing, the sense of community and unity that you see in communities is amazing.
I mean, I go to a village where not, you know, they don't have much, but you still, there's so much joy, there's so much dancing, there's so much celebration.
So, I think for me, the sense of communities and communities coming together to try and figure out how do we work together to resolve our challenges.
It's very remarkable in Malawi when you actually see how smallholder farming is happening in some of these villages.
It's incredible.
I was in the bank just a few hours ago and there was a huge line of groups coming to register their village banking or they have got some sort of farming corporation amongst them all trying to work together.
to make income and share that income and find ways to kind of, you know, do development together.
So, I think that sense of community and trying to co-exist, right, and co-invest, right, in different initiatives has been a powerful thing that I've seen.
In the civil society organizations, we're seeing more civil society organizations coming together and working together.
Despite earlier on where we were talking about how, you know, civil society organizations trying to not share the resources they're coming in, there are others trying to change that.
Where, for example, in Zamba, and you're seeing this set up more frequently now where there are civil society networks coming together or coalitions coming together, trying to find ways on how do we work together?
How do we share resources?
How do we do joint projects together?
So, I think that's also another success, right?
That collaborative effort that is coming together has been really powerful.
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[Dan Banik]
Of course, I have to put on my more pessimistic hat now, too, to balance the picture.
And I'm thinking being a woman in this country is not that easy.
Being a girl child in this country is not that easy.
It has to be said, life is difficult for everyone.
But if you're a woman and a girl, there are additional challenges.
It could be violence.
It could be sexual harassment.
Not just Malawi.
It happens all over the world.
But when one is poor, one could be exploited.
Child marriages.
But again, there we've seen some chiefs stand up and have taken on these crusades.
It is not easy to inherit property if one is a woman.
You're a lawyer.
I'm sure you've been through a lot of these things.
these challenges, can you highlight what is being done in this space?
What, in your view, actually helps and works?
I've been to communities, 10 years ago when I first came here, 20 years ago when I first came here, I remember visiting a UNICEF project in a village,
And I was put on a platform, on a dais, and I was speaking with the village.
And the village was divided into men on one side, women on the other.
When I was speaking with the women, as soon as a man on the other side stood up, the woman sat down.
So, there's a lot of that hierarchy.
And then there is witchcraft.
There is distrust.
So, could you highlight for my listeners what really works in terms of promoting women?
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[Tikhala Itaye]
women's rights so i am unpacking the gender piece now because we parked it earlier and I’m glad you brought it up because i did want to spend time talking about this because Malawi is a patriarchy society and issues of gender and i remember years ago when the concepts of
Gender was coming up.
Everyone just felt like this is a Western concept.
What do you mean woman empowerment?
What do you mean ending child marriage?
You know, we've had this law for years.
Now you want us to change the age for marriage to 16 to 18.
So, you know, there's been a huge movement around women's rights and girls' rights in Malawi because of the way our country is founded, very patriarchy and the culture that is so rich in Malawi, where already a woman's role, girl's role is already defined, right, from growing up.
You are already told you are going to be the one looking after the household, cleaning up the household.
There's already responsibilities already placed on you by just being a girl in Malawi.
So, there's been a lot of social movements to kind of change those dynamics and also recognize that a girl and a woman has the right to education.
has a right to decide about her body because I think even Malawi issues of reproductive health is such a big issue interestingly talking about this I was in part of writing an issues paper with Nyali Institute and this was about a landmark case that happened in Malawi last year about a
girl who was raped at the age of 13 by an older man in his 40s and needed to access abortion, right?
And it became a huge, obviously, issue.
It went through strategic litigation, of course, and Malawi has got a Gender Equality Act that was adopted in 2014.
And that act actually has got provisions now that are being recognized and upheld in court.
And with that case, the court literally ruled in her favor because there was a provision there that talked about everyone's right to sexual reproductive health rights, including issues related to access to safe abortion.
And she won the case, you know, because she was denied in a health facility and they were not supposed to deny her because of what was in the Gender Equality Act.
So, my point there is that I think with legal provisions and awareness that's being raised in different spaces, there's no...
A general recognition that, yes, a girl does have a right to decide about her body.
She does have a right to have access to services that she needs and when she needs them.
Recognizing that sexual violence is wrong because there have been cultural practices, right, that...
they feel it's right.
They call them passage of rights, where, you know, some of them, which you probably saw a lot in the news, called hyena, right?
Where man has to sleep with so many girls who are going through, who are transitioning to puberty, right?
And that was a big issue because he was HIV positive, right?
So there's been a lot of these issues, but I feel like slowly and surely there's
We are recognizing, you know, women's rights, girls' rights.
There's much more being done than there was before.
Gender Equality Act already says a lot.
Recently, the Ministry of Health has got an adolescent girls and young women strategy.
So, government is doing their role.
The civil society organization, obviously, that are doing quite a lot to raise that awareness.
But then again, at a local level, it's a huge mindset shift, right?
You're working with communities, traditional leaders that have been practicing a certain custom for years.
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[Dan Banik]
And they'll resist any change.
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[Tikhala Itaye]
Exactly.
A one-year project or one-year advocacy or one-month awareness is not going to change that immediately.
I think this is something that's going to be ongoing, but definitely there's still challenges there.
I think even speaking at a personal level, I remember having a job where I was supporting the global fund country, the CCM country mechanisms.
And I remember attending a meeting then.
I was still quite young.
I was in my mid-20s and I have this role.
And attending that meeting, you know what I mean?
Someone from government, a man comes up to me and he says,
Oh, are you the one, the country focal person with Global Fund with this project that we're running?
I said, yes.
And then he looks at me and he laughs and he goes, oh, so who did you sleep with to get this job?
You know?
So already that concept of like being a young woman, because you have a leadership position, you have to have either slept with someone to get that role, you know, and those are some of the stereotypes you're still facing.
Because obviously, you know, there isn't that faith in women leadership at that level.
So there's still challenges, but I think there has been progress from like 10, 20 years ago.
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[Dan Banik]
We have to remain optimistic.
In this age of doom and gloom, we can't just think about the fact that aid is coming to an end or maybe is in decline.
What do you see happening in the next six months, in the next year?
Where do you think this global conversation on aid is going?
And how do you think this is going to impact countries like Malawi?
And we can zoom out.
There are many others who are also very aid dependent.
Are you hopeful that the government will be able to diversify its revenue, that a lot of organizations, including yours, will be able to find new sources of funding, new ways of doing what you've been doing?
What I'm worried about is things can go from bad to worse.
So give me hope, Takala.
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[Tikhala Itaye]
Dan, I am hopeful for the future.
It doesn't feel like it now, but...
having to have faced sudden funding cuts from USAID, which was obviously massive, but then also other governments, you know, UK aid and so forth that are also going through funding cuts.
But I'm hopeful because it's given me the ability to look within, within my organization, within my community in terms of how,
How do we challenge ourselves to resolve our own issues without the need and dependence of external funding or external support?
The solutions communities have come up with and taking control and ownership of their own problems has been a game changer.
To be honest, I think this is a wake up call for all of us, because especially in civil society, organization and government where you have been comfortable with the donor aid and the external support but now is an opportunity to have ownership.
of the issues you're facing and actually looking within our own resources, our own expertise to resolve our own problems without the need of external support.
I have seen innovation coming up, right, where in the past, because you're dependent on a particular funding stream that already has defined how this funding will be used, I mean, you're restricted, right?
You're not thinking outside the box.
But now we are, Dan, and it's amazing.
There are people innovating, there are young people innovating, right, in the midst of challenges and challenges.
And I'm seeing a lot of other institutions that usually run incubations like business incubations and people are doing a lot more of that.
Right.
Because we all know that the more we create businesses is more job employment.
We're going to boost the economy.
Right.
We're going to get jobs.
some sort of economic growth from that.
So you can even see shifts of investment in the kind of trade side and the agriculture side.
There's a lot of initiatives heading in that direction.
So which is fantastic.
So for me, I am hopeful and I'm loving seeing people take that initiative.
that local ownership that local leadership which was never there before you'd kind of wait till someone says hey here's funding and this is what I need to do and you're like yeah we can align to that and figure it out but no we're like this is what we need to do and we're designing it with everyone else we're coming together and trying to figure it out together and I think even Malawi I
at first when I found out banks were taxing every transfer you make, you're like, every single withdrawal transfer I make in the bank, online, and the ATM, it's taxed, Dan.
And you're like, oh my gosh, this is crazy.
Like they're robbing us.
But then,
you know, the government is trying to find ways to generate that extra income to make development work for us.
So, despite the challenges, despite the economic strain right now with everything rising and trying to figure out, oh my goodness, how am I going to survive?
I think in the midst of challenges, innovation happens, right?
And we begin to do things differently and build businesses differently.
So, I'm hopeful.
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[Dan Banik]
Well, one of the highlights of this trip was to meet and interact with you.
I very much enjoyed our conversation today.
Thank you very much for coming on my show.
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[Tikhala Itaye]
Thank you so much, Dan.
It's been an honor to be on your show today.