The Cotonou Partnership Agreement between the European Union (EU) and African, Carribean and Pacific (ACP) countries, to which Malawi is party, emphasises the complimentary roles and contributions of the State and Non State Actors (NSAs) in the development process and the importance of local ownership of development programmes and projects towards greater equity and inclusion of the poor in socio-economic development.

In Malawi, the European Commission (EC) has been supporting Non State Actors for several years. In the past years two main vehicles were used: the food security budget line through which funding was made accessible to NGOs to implement related projects and the National Initiative for Civic Education (NICE), an initiative aimed at promoting civic education education at grassroots level. This experience led to the need for more closer co-operation between Non State Actors, EC and the Government of Malawi in developmental policy implementation, policy dialogue and service delivery.

With support from EC, the Government of Malawi in 2005 commissioned external consultants, Geomar international to undertake a mapping study of the Non State Actors in Malawi. The mapping study reported "the challenges surrounding the NSA sector are, inter alia, the need to develop greater financial self-reliance and mobilisation of financial resources within, inter alia, through further development of corporate philanthropy".

The GoM/EU mapping study of 2005 identified five priority areas for Non State Actors support as follows:

Support to NSA Institutional Development and Financing

Support to NSA capacity for Service Delivery

Support for NSA capacity for advocacy

Enhancing NSA-Government Cooperation

Enhancing NSA-EC and Government Cooperation

These areas became the five result areas targeted by the Capacity Building Programme for Non State Actors in Malawi.