* Along the road to 2063, there are many opportunities that have to be exploited by everyone at every level
* People must be told that this is not a government agenda, but their own roadmap that can lift them out of poverty
By Wanangwa Tembo, MANA
Traditional Authority (TA) Mphomwa of Kasungu says civic education institutions must ensure that there is intensified sensitisation and awareness on the Malawi’s national vision, MW2063 so that every person participates towards its realisation.
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He said this in Kasungu on Saturday during a day-long training for District Advisory Forum (DAF), an advisory volunteer structure under the National Initiative Civic Education (NICE) Trust.
T/A Mphomwa, who is also the DAF chairperson, said while the people are aware of the country’s ambitious development blueprint, they need more information on how they can contribute towards its realisation.
“Along the road to 2063, there are many opportunities that have to be exploited by everyone at every level,” said the chief. “People must be told that this is not a government agenda, but their own roadmap that can lift them out of poverty.
“At the same time, there are threats which people must be aware of. Here we are talking about vices like corruption. Corruption has a huge potential to affect the realisation of the MW2063 so people must be vigilant and ensure they guard against it.”
T/A Mphomwa
The traditional leader also said there is need to guide people on the kind of the leaders the country needs to drive the agenda and to counter the electing of leaders on tribal lines.
On his part, NICE Trust district civic education officer for Kasungu, Pilirani Chaguza said the focus in 2024 will be on raising awareness on the duties and responsibilities of various duty bearers and elected leaders so that citizens are able to demand quality services from them.
“Citizens must be aware of how the central and local governments operate, looking at their duties and responsibilities,” he said. “We also have to prepare the people on the forthcoming tripartite elections in 2025. So, we are orienting our volunteer structures who will lead this exercise.”
Pilirani Chaguza
With funding from government, NICE is conducting activities to popularise the MW2063 and help to change the way people think and do things in a quest to graduate the country from being a low and donor-dependent country to a middle income and self-reliant nation.
The Malawi it wants to be that is contained in the MW2063 include:
* An inclusively wealthy and self-reliant industrialized upper middle-income country;
* A vibrant knowledge-based economy with a strong and competitive manufacturing industry that is driven by a productive and commercially vibrant agriculture and mining sector;
* World-class urban centers and tourism hubs across the country with requisite socio-economic amenities for a high-quality life;
* A united, peaceful, patriotic and proud people that believe in their own abilities and are active participants in building their nation;
* Effective governance systems and institutions with strict adherence to the rule of law;
* A high-performing and professional public service;
* A dynamic and vibrant private sector;
* Globally competitive economic infrastructure;
* A globally competitive and highly motivated human resource; and
* An environmentally sustainable economy.
These are being done through three pillars of Agriculture Productivity & Commercialization; Industrialization and Urbanization — whose seven enablers are Mindset Change; Effective Governance Systems and Institutions; Enhanced Public Sector Performance; Private Sector Dynamism; Human Capital Development; Economic Infrastructure and Environmental Sustainability.
The MW2063 First 10-Year Implementation Plan (MIP-1) has priority strategies and interventions by pillars and enablers, whose quick wins include interventions that are already in the pipeline or on-going for scaling-up; that have ready finance commitment and have political will.
It also has game-changer interventions with significantly impacts and have to be done if Malawi is to graduate into middle-income country by 2030; Flagship projects and programs that will lay foundations of development and that the MIP-1 also defines indicative cost and financing options for every intervention (K12 Trillion as of 2021 estimates.
NPC also developed a Dashboard that allows stakeholders to track progress of the MIP-1 and make informed decisions, which is a dynamic data driven window for tracking and reporting the implementation progress of MIP-1 and SDGs.
It is also a planning reference for all implementing stakeholders because it contains all MIP-1 prioritised interventions and their respective implementation status.
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The MIP-1 first annual progress (2022) is at 79% of the outlined interventions planned for the period 2021 and 2022 and out of the 79% commenced, only 20% were on track.
In the MIP-1 progress by pillar and enablers, NPC said the environmental sustainability reported the most progress with 27% of interventions on track while industrialisation, urbanisation, private sector dynamism, mindset change are lagging behind — yet these are key to inclusive wealth creation and self-reliance.
On progress towards graduating to middle income country faces challenges in that economic growth, even before Cyclone Freddy, remained low at less than 3.5 % in the past 3 years and that the third year running below the MIP-1 required average of 6%.
The growth is lower than the global and sub-Saharan Africa and NPC maintains that this calls for fast reorienting budgeting to ensure it is inline with MIP-1 — whose intervention were modelled as the best option to graduate the economic to middle income economy by 2030.
On the trends of budgetary allocation shares to pillars and enablers, NPC reported that it has remained the same allocation trend over the years with industrialisation, urbanisation, agriculture and environment — which are key to wealth creation — have remained with low share.
The budgets are also not reflecting the democratic developmental state philosophy of resuscitating the defunct Malawi Development Corporation (MDC); making Agricultural Development and Marketing Corporation (ADMARC) to be fully commercialized and be jointly managed with the private sector — and that Malawi should have its own mining company in strong alliance with the private sector.
The presenters stressed that to achieve the MIP-1 milestones, the national budget needs to ensure resources are financing identified MIP-1 priorities, saying “Government is the biggest economic agent in the economy” and that it “sets the tone and shows the way”.
One key reasons for low performance of the Vision 2020, which has been succeeded by MW2063, was that the national budgets were not financing the vision.—Additional reporting by Duncan Mlanjira, Maravi Express
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