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ESA Regional Hub: Strengthening City-Led Prevention of Hate, Extremism and Polarisation in Malawi

Publication Date:

05/05/2025

Content Type:

Event Reports

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City-Led Preventiondigital resilienceESA Regional HubLilongweurban planning

Summary

On 5 – 6 May 2025, the Strong Cities Network’s East and Southern Africa (ESA) Regional Hub and the Malawian Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture co-hosted a national-local dialogue in Lilongwe (Malawi) on Strengthening City-Led Prevention of Hate, Extremism and Polarisation. The event convened city leaders and other officials from Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Zomba, representatives from the national government and development partners, such as the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The dialogue took place in the context of a broader programme of support the Regional Hub has been providing in Malawi to both local authorities and the national government – primarily the Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture – since March 2024, when the Hub hosted an introductory workshop on strengthening national-local cooperation (NLC) in the implementation of both the country’s National Counter Terrorism and Prevention of Violent Extremism (PVE) Strategy (2023 – 2028) and in light of a new Decentralisation Policy launched in February 2024.

The 2025 dialogue provided national and local stakeholders with an opportunity to share progress made with both strengthening NLC and local action against hate and extremism since then. It offered officials from the four participating cities a platform to share new initiatives on fostering social cohesion and to reaffirm their growing role in prevention. City officials also shared challenges and ongoing gaps with addressing hate and extremism, opening the way for constructive discussion on how national governments and international partners can help address them. The workshop concluded with a collective commitment to continued collaboration to enhance NLC, particularly to improve national-local information sharing and further strengthen decentralisation.

Key Findings

• There are several national frameworks and strategies that can provide parameters for local government-led action against hate and extremism. While the national government – primarily through the Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture – has started sensitising local governments and other local actors on these frameworks, this awareness-raising must be scaled further and complemented with capacity-building as well as opportunities for more regular national-local engagement on issues of hate, extremism and polarisation.
• Since the dialogue in 2024, Malawi’s four primary cities have each taken important steps to either a) incorporate prevention of extremism into pre-existing community structures and/or b) create new fora in which these threats and their root causes can be discussed and addressed. These efforts have further underscored how local governments are uniquely placed to serve as first points of contact for local challenges that have national security implications.
• Despite these promising developments, there remains concern around the ability (i.e., capacity and resources) for cities to address increasing pressures from rapid urbanisation, which is fuelled by domestic and cross-border migration, climate change, growing socioeconomic disparities, spillover of violence and regional instability and more.
• Local officials seek more city-city learning opportunities in light of the above challenges, particularly as the country nears its next elections, with local officials particularly concerned about the potential for election-related violence amidst an increasingly volatile local context.

Threats & Key Challenges

Participants identified several challenges that threaten social cohesion and exacerbate hate, extremism and polarisation in Malawi. Chief among these is rapid urbanisation as a result of domestic rural-urban and cross-border migration driven by climate change and regional conflicts. City officials shared that this has led to a marked increase in anti-migrant sentiment, with migrants deemed by some as a threat to local resources and access to basic services and employment. Local officials added that they are already struggling to integrate and meet the needs of those living in informal settlements on the outskirts of their cities and that, as migration continues, these settlements will only grow, in turn exacerbating the already volatile living conditions and sense of exclusion of those living in such settlements. Officials noted that this – together with the increase in anti-migrant sentiment – creates a vulnerable, isolated population that may be exploited by militant groups, gangs and other malicious actors.

In this context, Alexander Nkunika, Senior Deputy Director for Counterterrorism at the National Intelligence Service, added that mass cross-border migration and the current gap in monitoring this effectively due to Malawi’s (and the broader region’s) porous borders, bring risks of terrorists and/or other militants crossing into Malawi to recruit or commit attacks. Such concerns were echoed by officials from the four cities represented in the dialogue, with each sitting in proximity to Malawi’s border with either northern Mozambique or southern Tanzania, where Islamist insurgents have been increasingly active.

Further, as the country nears its general election in September 2025, participants expressed concern about politically motivated dis- and misinformation, particularly regarding social assistance, disaster relief and cash transfer programmes. Participants provided examples of narratives that are already circulating and sowing division by framing such services as favouring certain tribal and ethnic groups over others. There is also concern that anti-migrant sentiment will be exploited for political gain.

Key Themes

1. National-Local Cooperation

Representatives of the Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture and the Ministry of Homeland Security presented on progress with the implementation of key safety and security frameworks such as the National Counter Terrorism and PVE Strategy 2023, the National Peace Policy 2017 and the Decentralisation Policy 2024.

For example, since the Strong Cities national-local dialogue in 2024, the Ministry of Local Government, Unity and Culture has worked closely with Malawi’s four cities as part of its commitment to implement Peace and Unity Committees per city. This responds to a direct request made by local officials at the 2024 dialogue: that Peace and Unity Committees, which at the time only existed at the district/regional level, must also be established at the city level to enable a more localised approach to addressing safety and security challenges. Such efforts also support implementation of the Decentralisation Policy, which accounts for a greater role for city-level administrations in conflict prevention and addressing matters of safety and security more broadly.

While city officials welcomed these important steps, they insisted that this cannot stop there and requested a more concerted, proactive and consistent effort from national government partners to consult with them on – and build their capacity to support – local implementation of national frameworks and strategies. Gomezgani Nyaulu, Chief Executive Officer of Mzuzu City Council (Malawi), provided a timely example of the importance of national institutions consulting with local actors as the norm, rather than the exception: he shared that while the national government’s efforts to designate certain forests in the country as ‘protected sites’ is a step in the right direction for climate protection, this has created significant challenges as local actors were not adequately prepared to accommodate the socioeconomic impacts of such decisions. For example, with mining and deforestation now illegal in such sites, rural communities that were previously reliant on this for their livelihoods are either migrating to urban centres (adding to the above-mentioned challenges with rapid urbanisation) or illegally continuing with such activities. Had there been greater coordination between the national government and relevant local governments in decision-making and implementation of such climate protection measures, local governments could have worked with affected communities to prepare them, whether by providing for alternative means of employment or supporting their relocation.  

In this context, local officials welcomed their national government counterparts, sharing that they are reviewing some frameworks, such as the National Peace Policy launched in 2017, to ensure it better captures the needs and concerns of local actors and today’s realities. This is in addition to the launch of a new National Action Plan on Youth Participation in Peacebuilding, which local governments will play an important role in operationalising in collaboration with the Ministry of Youth.

Further, as shared by Mercy Kaira, Principal Economist at the Ministry of Homeland Security, the Ministry facilitates an annual cross-border forum with relevant national peace and defence agencies in Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, the focus of which is to address transnational crime, establish joint security measures such as joint border patrols. Participants agreed that local governments should be invited and supported to take part in this annual gathering.

Finally, Emmanuel Bambe, Director of Peace and National Unity, added that the government is developing legislation to prohibit discrimination and give local authorities legal parameters through which to address discrimination in their cities.

2. City-Led Action and Innovation

The dialogue also provided mayors and other local officials with the opportunity to share how they are addressing the root causes of vulnerability in their cities. With socioeconomic grievances a key concern, officials are investing in scaling employment opportunities, including through public-private partnerships, while safety and security-related challenges are being addressed through establishing community-based networks, such as ward-level safety committees, that regularly convene to discuss and address emerging threats. For example:

• Joseph Makwinja, Mayor of Blantyre (Malawi), shared that, as Malawi’s commercial capital and with its proximity to Mozambique, the City is experiencing an influx of both domestic and cross-border migrants, with the former seeking economic opportunities and the latter fleeing the insurgency in northern Mozambique. The City is taking a long-term approach to addressing these challenges, investing in public-private partnerships to improve its tourism industry and commercial capital through the establishment of business/conference centres and malls, employment opportunities for which will explicitly target both long-term residents and migrants. It is envisioned that this will not only address the socioeconomic grievances driving division but also build on the City’s identity as a commercial hub, in turn driving more (international) investment.
• Esther Sagawa, Mayor of Lilongwe (Malawi), cited rising levels of xenophobia, targeting both labour migrants and expat communities (with expats living in better conditions than many locals being a source of tension), as a significant concern. The growth of informal settlements around the City is adding to socioeconomic divides, while misinformation and conspiracies around public service delivery prioritising affluent communities is affecting trust in the local government. The Mayor and City Council are therefore focusing on improving transparency around public service delivery and awareness of how the City is supporting all residents – and how it plans to improve equitable service delivery – through comprehensive communications campaigns that leverage local radio stations, community-based leaders and the City’s official communications channels.
• Brian Nyasulu, Mayor of Mzuzu (Malawi), is looking at community policing to address conflict between its long-term residents and new arrivals, adding that such conflict is increasingly taking ethnic, religious and/or political undertones. The Mayor hopes that empowering communities to recognise, report and safely address tensions will prevent conflict from escalating and manifesting into violence.
• Christopher Jana, Mayor of Zomba (Malawi), shared that Zomba City Council is working with ward-level governance committees to strengthen social cohesion. Whereas such committees traditionally focus only on financial/economic and other basic livelihood concerns, the City Council is now tasking them to incorporate social cohesion and inter-community togetherness into their mandates. The City Council is complementing ward-level efforts with city-wide peacebuilding initiatives, including regular interfaith engagements to address hostility and mis/disinformation between its predominantly Muslim and Christian communities, among others.

3. Emerging Needs

While participants agreed that national and local government efforts highlighted during the workshops are contributing to the development of a long-term, whole-of-society response to hate and extremism in Malawi, they also cited several needs and capacity gaps that require attention in order to strengthen and sustain this response. These include:

• Rethinking urban planning and design to be more inclusive and adaptive to climate change: as cities grow in population size and as climate change exacerbates flooding, drought and other natural disasters in Malawi, city officials seek to revisit urban design as a tool to strengthen climate resilience and social integration. Participants welcomed the Strong Cities policy brief on this topic – and the inclusion of this practice area in Strong Cities activities – and seek opportunities to learn from each other and counterparts across Strong Cities’ global network on how urban planning can be used to this end.
• Building the capacity of local officials on effective communications against hate, extremism and mis- and disinformation: while Lilongwe and Zomba have had some success in promoting positive messaging and debunking mis- and disinformation, there is a general gap in capacity amongst local government officials to address conspiracies and use the full potential of media – and media partnerships (i.e., with local radio stations) – for the purpose of preventing hate, extremism and polarisation.
• Broader community-wide digital citizenship and resilience: related to the above, local governments seek support to strengthen community-wide digital hygiene and resilience practices, particularly as smartphone and social media usage continue to increase across the country.
• Overcoming bureaucratic barriers at the national level that delay or impede city-led action: an example provided is that of designating city limits, which is a mandate of the national government. Local government officials emphasised the need for the national government to quickly respond to their requests to expand their city limits so they can start investing in housing and other infrastructure to address rapid urbanisation. This would also allow cities to have more capacity to seek public-private partnerships for external investment in such land development, industrialisation and job creation.

Next Steps

Inspired by the two-day discussion, participants requested that Strong Cities continue hosting peer-learning opportunities and sharing and disseminating city-focused technical resources. City officials also expressed interest in regional advocacy through the Malawi Association of Local Government Authorities and collaboration with other local government associations from the region, the Southern Africa Development Community and the African Union to amplify local priorities in regional peacebuilding policies.

The workshop also concluded with several high-level commitments:

• To streamline and add structure to their efforts, city officials agreed to develop and begin implementing local action plans to address hate, extremism and polarisation.
• National stakeholders will continue reviewing (and offering local governments the opportunity to support review of) the National Peace Policy to ensure it aligns with local needs, considers local structures and encourages local action.
• The Peace and Unity Commission will continue to work towards the operationalisation of Peace and Unity Committees in Blantyre, Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Zomba.
• The national government will make a consistent effort to raise awareness of its various frameworks and strategies, including building sub-national capacity for their implementation. Through the Ministry of Local Government, the national government will also proactively collaborate and communicate with cities during national budgeting processes to improve resource allocation for local implementation of national strategies.

Additional Resources

• ESA Event Report: How Local Governments Can Prevent Hate, Extremism and Polarisation and Promote Unity and Social Cohesion in Malawi. Strong Cities Network, March 2024
• ESA City Spotlights: eThekwini Municipality (South Africa), Mandera County (Kenya), Mukaza Commune (Burundi), Nansana Municipality (Uganda), Stellenbosch Municipality (South Africa) 
• Strong Cities Policy Brief: National-Local Cooperation: A Pillar of City-Led Prevention of Hate, Extremism and Polarisation – A Practice Update. Strong Cities Network, December 2024
• Global Counterterrorism Forum’s National-Local Cooperation Toolkit, September 2023
• A Guide for City-Led Response. Strong Cities Network, April 2024 
• Preventing and Responding to Election Disruption and Violence: Ten Considerations for Cities, Strong Cities Network, March 2024 
• A Guide for Mayors: Preventing and Responding to Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, September 2023 
• A Guide for Cities: Preventing Hate, Extremism and Polarisation, Strong Cities Network, September 2023 
• Addressing the Overlooked Role of African Cities in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism, Strong Cities Network, July 2022 

Donors & Partners

Contact Information

For more information on this event, please contact Gertrude Rose Gamwera Buyinga, Head of the ESA Regional Hub, at [email protected]

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