This is the first of two annual reports to be submitted during the three-year prospective evaluation (PE) of the Global Partnership for Education in Malawi – one of eight country PEs, to be comple-mented by 20 summative country evaluations that will be carried out between 2018 and 2020. It follows a baseline report on Malawi (the complete draft of which was prepared prior to the field visit in April 2018 with the final version submitted in June 2018) and reproduces some of the material that was included in that report. It incorporates the findings of the first PE mission to the country, which took place from in April 2018, and offers some initial, tentative conclusions on the basis of the limited data collection, monitoring and assessment undertaken to date.