
* Africa has resources enough to make a food sufficient continent—President Higgins
* He toured Malawi in November 2014 and visited several areas including LUNAR
*To appreciate Malawi’s strides towards agriculture and food security
By Arkangel Tembo, MANA in New York, USA
After their meeting yesterday in New York, President of Ireland, Michael Higgins applauded President Lazarus Chakwera’s vision of enhancing irrigation farming as a solution to food insecurity.

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The two leaders met on the sidelines of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) where they discussed several issues including food security.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nancy Tembo said during the meeting, President Chakwera shared Malawi’s vision on food security, mega farms and irrigation farming.
On his part, President Higgins, while applauding Malawi’s strategy on agriculture, said Africa has resources enough to make a food sufficient continent.
Higgins visited Malawi in November 2014 and visited several areas including Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUNAR) to appreciate Malawi’s strides towards agriculture and food security.
President Chakwera also had discussions with African Development Bank Group president, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina and donors, potential investors and heads of international institutions that showed interest to support Malawi’s development agenda.

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He also held bilateral talks with Kenya President, William Ruto on Tuesday evening at the Kenyan Embassy in New York as well as visiting the Malawi’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations, to appreciate the office and hold talks with staff members.

With President Ruto

At the Malawi’s Permanent Mission to the UN
The President had a busy day yesterday as he attended Semafor’s Next 3 Billion Fireside meeting at which he highlighted more of his government’s vision to bring more Malawians into the digital space, to match international standards and improve the country’s economy.
“My administration continues to place emphasis on digitalisation,” he said. “We are putting in place workable strategies to bridge the existing digital divide so that Malawians, who fall into the 3 billion bracket, find their way out and start contributing meaningfully to national development.”
The Malawi leader said digitalisation also improves government transparency and domestic revenue collection by enabling digital payments and in recognising this, the MW2063 national vision has singled out industrialisation and digitalisation as key pillars.
“We have laid the groundwork in our national plans, focusing on affordable connectivity, leveraging diplomatic data corridors with neighbors, licensing innovative solutions like Starlink, and ensuring digital literacy and data protection,” he said.
He told the gathering that digitalisation will spur the next African economy, driven by home-grown innovation and digital ecosystems, saying: “A Malawian innovator should be able to reach the SADC market effortlessly through cross-border digital platforms.
“However, as we harness the power of connectivity, we must also put in place robust legal and regulatory frameworks to protect our citizens from digital risks.”
He explained that, despite majority of people being unconnected in Malawi, connectivity has jumped from 18% in 2020 to 37.9% in 2023: “This rapid adoption of internet technologies is transforming our economy — the CoVID-19 pandemic gave us a stark reality check.
“The digital divide adversely impacted economic growth, as we lacked alternative digital service delivery platforms available to the common person. Public schools were hit harder than private schools,” he told the delegates.
The World Bank estimates that a 10% increase in internet penetration can positively impact Gross Domestic Product by 2%.

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