Community-led monitoring as a results-based strategy for improving rights-based HIV service delivery: A mixed-methods case study from Blantyre, Malawi

Despite Malawi’s progress toward the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets, facility-level rights-based challenges in HIV services persist, including stigma, discrimination and limited community participation. Community-led monitoring (CLM) has been promoted as an accountability mechanism, yet independent, facility-level evidence from urban settings remains scarce. This convergent parallel mixed-methods study assessed CLM at Ndirande and Limbe health facilities in Blantyre using a client survey (n=250), key informant interviews (n=12), and focus group discussions (three groups, 15 participants), totalling 277 participants. Chi-square tests (with Cramér’s V) and binary logistic regression were used for the quantitative data; qualitative data were thematically analysed and triangulated. Analysis was guided by the rights-based approach to health and Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation.

Awareness of CLM was moderate (56.0%) but participation was lower (40.2%), with involvement rated 2.78 out of 5, indicating consultative engagement. Awareness of CLM was the strongest and only robust predictor of participation (adjusted odds ratio ≈ 5.0, 95% confidence interval 2.4–10.6, p<0.001); a bivariate gender association did not survive adjustment. Notably, 41% of participants engaged in monitoring without recognising the term “CLM.” CLM strengthened community–provider communication (68.5%) more than responsiveness (36.2%). Accountability mechanisms existed but functioned informally and were inconsistently documented. The two facilities did not differ significantly on any of nine indicators (all p>0.12). Barriers were structural: funding, transport, staff attitudes, fear of reprisal, and cultural norms.

Urban CLM is a real but under-institutionalised accountability practice. The decisive lever is closing the awareness–action gap and formalising existing, unrecognised community monitoring through low-cost documentation, scheduled feedback, and independent, confidential complaint mechanisms. Findings are analytically transferable and offered as hypotheses for national piloting rather than as statistically generalisable conclusions.