This week, Malawi launched its independent review report, focused on assessing climate finance and sustainability across three regions of the country worth US$2.47 billion. They reviewed projects focused on supporting Malawi to mitigate against climate risks. 

Using CoST’s climate finance and sustainability data points, the review assessed high and low performing dimensions, stages of data publication, accuracy of information, climate finance outcomes, carbon reduction efficiency, co-benefits, construction management and observations from site visits. 

Projects were selected through a structured, deliberate and transparent process, balancing multiple multiple criteria: climate relevance, financial scale, governance risks, and stakeholder input. The process included risk-based assessments and active engagement with the Multi-Stakeholder Group to ensure that the projects chosen were significant in scope and representative of the challenges and opportunities in Malawi’s climate infrastructure portfolio.

The report demonstrated strong points such as high data publication (67%-83%) at early stages, and projects publishing climate objectives, beneficiaries, and investment amounts. There was robust reporting on environment safeguards. 

However, the report highlighted several areas of improvement, including lack of publication of “climate finance needs assessment” which was a consistent gap across nearly all projects. There was also a lack of data in some areas including governance, cost benefit analysis, economic justification, stakeholder engagement, crisis management and governance.The review demonstrated that critical social and institutional dimensions require more work. 

These data standards and this review is important because it’s able to assess the evidence of climate claims made, like alliance with the national climate plans, or driving gender equality. It allows considerations for carbon efficiency, adaptation results, and verifies or debunks claims around aspects such as job creation. 

The report conveys the need for governance, data publication and regulatory strength to ensure long-term sustainability, accountability, and climate impact. Malawi’s ability to achieve this is enhanced by recent changes around regulation. The National Construction Industry Council (NCIC) has recently become the Construction Industry Regulatory Authority (CIRA) with enhanced powers to enforce compliance, conduct audits, and uphold financial, technical, and safety standards across public and private projects. As the report highlights, “this shift from advocacy to enforcement signals Malawi’s commitment to rigorous governance, aiming to ensure that infrastructure investments are transparent, sustainable, and aligned with national development goals.”

Key recommendations were provided for implementing agencies, development partners, government, CIRA, and other public bodies. These recommendations focused on aspects such as data publication, supervision, financing agreements, use of Malawi’s portal, around environmental and climate finance indicators and more.