MALAWI 6. Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (MoFS) 7. Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development (MoLHU) 8. Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MoLGRD) 9. Ministry of Health (MoH) SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS Category 1: Website analysis • • • • • There is a great improvement on the content of many websites, especially those that have performed poorly in the previous research. Blantyre City Council for example, has had no website in previous years, but now its website is one of the more active ones. It is very encouraging to note that unlike the previous research studies, most institutions surveyed in this year’s research have websites and at least one social media page. Just like past studies, however, the Ministries of Agriculture and Health continue to perform poorly in terms of website content and it is sad to note that websites for both ministries were down during the period this research was being undertaken. The Lilongwe Water Board website was also inaccessible during the period of this research. Despite not having a website at the moment, the Board has a Facebook account and a Twitter handle, but contains very little information about the organisation. It is also sad to note that some organisations continue to upload content without sufficient information, and omitting the dates activities occurred or were uploaded. This becomes a problem for viewers who want to know when events took place. Category 2: Requests for information • • • 12 Out of the 9 government and public institutions surveyed, five 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. Almost all organisations acknowledged receiving the requests for information. Most institutions promised to get back to the researcher but never did. The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development responded within 24 hours with a request for a telephone interview. The spokesperson for the Ministry indicated that she was ‘swamped’ with work and a telephone interview would be ideal.