Benchmarking the Malawi Water Sector Joint Sector Review System: A Diagnostic Assessment and Reform Pathways for SPR–JSR Governance

Malawi has an established water-sector Joint Sector Review (JSR) that provides an important government-led platform for assessing sector performance, convening stakeholders, promoting mutual accountability and agreeing priority actions. This report examines how that foundation can be strengthened so that the JSR evolves from an annual review event into a continuous system for learning, accountability, resilience and performance improvement. Drawing on 126 stakeholder interviews, analysis of three JSR cycles (2023–2025), quantitative governance assessment and multi-stakeholder validation, the study identifies opportunities to strengthen follow-up of undertakings, ownership of agreed actions, sector data systems, financing accountability, stakeholder participation, and links between review findings and national planning and budgeting. The assessment also highlights the need to broaden the JSR’s performance lens beyond conventional WASH service indicators by more systematically incorporating water security and climate resilience, including climate risks, resilience indicators, climate expenditure, infrastructure sustainability and operations and maintenance. This would enable the JSR to better reflect Malawi’s growing exposure to droughts, floods and other water-related climate risks and connect sector performance with wider national resilience objectives. The report proposes strengthening existing government systems rather than creating parallel mechanisms. Undertaken through the Water Resilience Tracker within the FCDO-supported Just Transitions for Water Security programme, it provides an evidence base for continued government-led reform of Malawi’s water-sector accountability system.