Recovery is happening to Malawi’s economic and social landscape following dire years, this according to President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera when he opened the Fourth Meeting of the 50th Parliamentary session on Friday.
The Malawi leader, through his State of the Nation address on Friday, breathed a new sense of hope to a country smarting from exogenous shocks brought about by four natural disasters, geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe and the economic disruptions emanating from all these.
To a country that has been under the weight of a myriad of exogenous economic and social influences, the message of hope relayed in the 2024 SONA comes as timely relief and that can be a stepping stone to the trajectory of job and wealth creation as presented in the country’s long-term development masterplan, Malawi2063.
According to the President, the year gone by has recorded some notable successes that have come about due to his administration’s sound economic policies that have seemingly revamped service delivery and growth of some key sectors.
Under what he has termed as the ATM Strategy, a coining of Agriculture, Tourism and Mining, the President has found the equation to what can expedite sustainable development for Malawi.
“What Malawians deserve is an economy that is no longer sick, one that is healthy and able to compete, not just one whose fever is slowly going down,” he insists.
The upward movement of the country by five steps (174 to 169) on Human Development Index exudes hope, Chakwera says with supporting determinants such as the lowering of food inflation, ending of blackouts, creation of jobs, attainment of the International Monetary Fund extended credit facility, and construction of key infrastructure to support all key sectors.
On IMF’s intervention alone, the President says Malawi managed to open an era of international goodwill and financial support as never seen in recent years.
The facility has among other immediate outcomes unlocked support from development partners and these include a 70 million Euro grant package from the German Government; a 137 million Dollar grant for budgetary support from the World Bank; another 57 million Dollar grant for Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown (CATDDO) from the World Bank; and another 240 million dollar grant from the World Bank for a Regional Climate Resilience Programme (RCRP).
“The donor community has chosen to give us credit for the reforms we have put in place.”
In his two-hour address, the President repeatedly credit the economic recovery to sound policies he has put in place to transition the country to a dimension that supports growth through job creation, improved service delivery, wealth creation and the wholesome economic turnaround.