MALAWI SUMMARY Institution Website Request for information Total score 1. Blantyre City Council 13 18 31 2. Lilongwe City Council 3 13 16 3. Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority 14 14 28 4. Malawi Electoral Commission 18 18 36 5. 10 14 24 6. Ministry of Information and Communications Technology 17 16 33 7. Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development 5 14 19 8. Mzuzu City Council 2 13 15 9. National AIDS Commission 4 12 16 RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS This study shows that public bodies are improving their level of openness, both in terms of general information on their online platforms and responding to requests for specific information. All the sampled institutions have online platforms and proactively provide information to the public. Apart from websites, some institutions are on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. Notably, all but two of the institutions have up-to-date information, representing 78% of the sampled institutions with updated content on their platforms. The information on these websites is relevant, which helps Malawians make informed decisions. Another notable development is a mechanism for feedback, which helps the institutions interact with the citizens and respond to key or specific concerns and information requests from citizens. Feedback helps the institutions to stay in touch with citizens while improving performance in line with the views or input from the citizens. It is also important to note that eight of the nine sampled public bodies have public relations officers or managers. The MCC, which did not have a public relations official at the time of this study, was in the process of recruiting one. This is a positive development that ought to be encouraged. Lastly, the study has also shown a notable improvement in the number of outlets that have responded to requests for information compared to both 2016 and 2017. In 2017 seven out of nine responded, representing a 78% response rate. This year, all the institutions responded, representing a 100% response rate. There is, however, room for further improvement to ensure that all institutions respond to requests for information without questioning what the information will be used for. There is also need for improvement to make sure that all websites are accessible and have up-to-date information. 36 THE MOST SECRETIVE PUBLIC INSTITUTION IN MALAWI All institutions that scored an aggregate below 20 qualify as closed institutions. Institutions that scored below 20 include the LCC, the MLGRD, the MCC and NAC. According to the scores, these institutions performed poorly on web presence. They need to improve their web presence and ensure that their sites are accessible and updated. All these institutions hold critical information. The city councils are in charge of developments in cities and need to proactively provide information to citizens. Councils also need to build trust with citizens and this can only be achieved with improved and two-way communication channels between the entities and citizens. Although all four institutions that scored below 20 qualify for the 2018 Golden Padlock Award, it is the MCC that has the lowest score; this is largely due to lack of relevant and upto-date information on its online platform. The MCC scored 2/20 on website analysis followed by the LCC at 3/20. Overall, however, the entity had a score of 15/40, followed by the LCC and NAC, both at 16/40. All these institutions need to proactively make information accessible to Malawians, but the winner of the Golden Padlock Award for the most secretive public institution of 2018 is the Mzuzu City Council.