MALAWI The study was conducted between July and September 2018. The participating institutions were randomly identified by MISA Malawi but deliberate effort was made to include institutions that play a critical role in Malawi’s national development. The following public institutions were surveyed: 1. Blantyre City Council (BCC) 2. Lilongwe City Council (LCC) 3. Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (MERA) 4. Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) 5. Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development (MOAIWD) 6. Ministry of Information and Communications Technology (MICT) 7. Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD) 8. Mzuzu City Council (MCC) 9. National Aids Commission (NAC) SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS Category 1: Website analysis • • • • • • • • There is a general improvement in the online presence of public bodies; all nine public bodies sampled have online platforms. Five of the nine institutions have websites. Three of these five institutions have Facebook pages and are also on Twitter. One of the institutions has all the following: a website, Facebook page, Twitter handle and a YouTube channel. Four of the institutions, who do not have websites, have Facebook pages. Five of the institutions’ websites have a mechanism for feedback, which helps institutions interact with citizens and respond to key or specific concerns and information requests. All but two of the institutions have up-to-date information, representing 78% of the sampled institutions that have updated information on their platforms. Some of the organisations that scored poorly on website analysis in 2017, such as the LCC, now have up-to-date information on their Facebook page. Some of the institutions are also on Instagram and LinkedIn, which was not the case in previous years. Category 2: Requests for information • • • 24 All nine institutions surveyed responded to the written requests for information. Some of the organisations requested a telephone and/or face-to-face interview and asked for justification from the researcher as to why they needed the information. Two of the organisations that responded to the written requests for information initially acknowledged receiving the requests for information and promised to get back to the researcher. Four of the entities that responded to the requests for information did so within 24 hours of receiving the request for information.