Climate change remains a global concern. If not tactfully handled, it will result in a more devastating catastrophe than we are prepared to imagine. Naturally, Malawi has joined the fight against climate change following the drastic effects the phenomenon has already had on the country.<\/p>\n
Erratic rains and floods have wreaked havoc in the country the past two years, leading to growing panic over food insecurity and economic stability considering the country\u2019s economy is largely agro-based.<\/p>\n
Some two weeks ago, President Peter Mutharika officially launched the 2016 World Environmental Day, the National Climate Change Week and the Ecosystem-Based Adaptation for Food Security Assembly. The three concepts came against this background of continued drastic effects of climate change which have resulted in the worst natural disasters in recent memory.<\/p>\n
It was good that the President took the same opportunity to applaud the long strides the private sector has taken towards delivering environmental solutions to the people of Malawi, which include solar energy facilities, cooking gas, briquettes, sustainable charcoal and climate smart agriculture.<\/p>\n
Climate change is real. It should not be taken as one of those projects that are nicely decorated on paper with a pompous launch. A few weeks down the line they are conveniently shelved as life goes back to business as usual.<\/p>\n
A seemingly incurable vice in Malawi is that funds everywhere \u2013 be it the public or private sector \u2013 continuously find their way into people\u2019s deep pockets. Greed has triumphed over the quest to build our nation. Worse, nobody seems to care. The only time we care is when fuel become scarce, when we start spending nights at filling stations.<\/p>\n
The country is plagued by a serious moral and leadership vacuum at every level. This vacuum is threatening to bring our nation to its knees. A week does not pass without reports of theft and fraud. These indicate that as a country we are lacking a sense of direction and we have lost our values.<\/p>\n
Leadership in the country seems to be more interested in their own pockets instead of the welfare of the constituents and the country at large. A week ago, parliament had 50 MPs out of 192 in attendance. A few days later it was announced that parliament has been suspended until MPs\u2019 \u2018conditions of service are discussed and revised\u2019.<\/p>\n
Considering the pathetic state the country is in, this is an alarming development. The greed is leaving us ill-equipped to tackle the enormous challenges posed by climate change.<\/p>\n
Looking at Malawi <\/strong><\/p>\n At grassroots level, Malawi as a country needs to aggressively rectify the current challenges related to climate change while developing insurance and security for the future.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s take, for instance, the devastating floods in the past few years, especially in the Lower Shire. The question now is: are people in the Lower Shire ready for the rainy season? Or should we expect that taxpayers\u2019 money is again going to be used to rescue people from the same places they have been rescued from before? Isn\u2019t this a painfully continuous but avoidable vicious cycle?<\/p>\n With the current food insecurity, are farmers waiting to plant this year using the same methods and same varieties as of 20 decades ago, miraculously hoping the rains will fall in a pattern they long stopped following? Are we still going to rely on the same staple food? Or are we going to revolutionise our palates to survive? Food security is a survival issues and those that adapt to change are the ones that survive.<\/p>\n On natural resources, are we waiting for trees to magically replenish themselves? Are we still hoping for a miracle to clean up our streams and rivers? The natural streams in our cities that would have added value to our natural cycles have instead turned into toxin-infested mudholes.<\/p>\n We talk about alternative energy sources but how available is solar energy to the average Malawian? How many Malawians can sustainably and safely use cooking gas in their homes?<\/p>\n In Malawi we have a lot of well-meaning organisations and equally well-meaning government ministries. The challenge always comes in in terms of implementation and thorough monitoring and evaluation and quality control.<\/p>\n On the other hand, the powers that be have to appreciate the need for aggressive civic education on change. We can have all the best projects, insights and plans for the country but without civic education progress will be elusive.<\/p>\n Civic education is especially important in a country like Malawi where the majority of people live below the poverty line and are illiterate. The rural masses have limited access to information and limited understanding of available information calling for continued efforts to include them in comprehensive information channels.<\/p>\n The fight against climate change needs to be a fight that is ingrained in our everyday norms if we are to achieve meaningful success in this regard.<\/p>\n I rest my case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Climate change remains a global concern. If not tactfully handled, it will result in a more devastating catastrophe than we are prepared to imagine. Naturally, Malawi has joined the fight against climate change following the drastic effects the phenomenon has already had on the country. Erratic rains and floods have wreaked havoc in the country […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26875"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26875\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26878,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26875\/revisions\/26878"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}