It is pleasing to note that the development of the new medium-term development strategy to replace the MGDS II is near completion. It is at the same time disappointing that this process has taken too long, and almost two years after the expiry of the MGDS II, we still do not have the document ready. For the second year running, we have been developing national budget based on \u2018expired\u2019 development targets and indicators.<\/p>\n
However, as the process of developing the strategy is underway, I have, as a citizen of the country, a few expectations that I would like to see in the document. Firstly, it has to be noted that these medium-term development frameworks are building blocks to achieving Vision 2020 and the strategy being developed will be the last in the series of strategies that have been developed in the past 15 years.<\/p>\n
The Malawi Vision 2020 states that \u201cBy year 2020, Malawi as a God-fearing nation, will be secure, democratically mature, environmentally sustainable, self-reliant with equal opportunities for and active participation by all having social services, vibrant cultural and religious values and a technically driven middle income country\u201d.<\/p>\n
This strategy is supposed to usher us into being a middle-income country. The question I always ask is whether this country is still pursuing this vision or we have thrown it away. This is because looking at the progress we have made in the past 15 years, it is very unlikely that we will be a middle-income country in the next three years. I would like, therefore, the authors of this document to explain where we are in the pursuit of vision 2020, and what needs to be done to achieve the vision in the remaining time.<\/p>\n
In every development strategy, one of the first things to be clearly defined is the development philosophy that will be followed in achieving the strategy. It seems to me that MGDS I and II never had a clear philosophy; it was more of a wish list. That\u2019s why for two years now, we have no medium-term development framework yet we passed the national budget.<\/p>\n
Malawi adopted neo-liberal market oriented development thinking around 1979, under the structural changes introduced by the IMF and World Bank, to the extent that when we were developing our country\u2019s Constitution in 1994, we enshrined these ideas therein. Chapter III, Fundamental Principle (n), states \u201cTo achieve a sensible balance between the creation and distribution of wealth through the nurturing of a market economy\u2026.\u201d However, my observation is that, after we adopted this way of thinking, our economy has not been in any way better.<\/p>\n
I have also asked questions whether it is possible to have a purely market economy when our national budgets have always been pro-poor and are usually heavy on social spending. I see a kind of a mix up here. I therefore fail to understand why we had to mention this in our Constitution. Maybe the framers of the Constitution agreed with the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who declared that \u201cThere is no alternative\u201d (to neo-liberalism). Let me categorically say here that there are lots of alternatives! As a matter of fact, none of today\u2019s developed countries including Britain itself, developed purely on free trade market policies.<\/p>\n
At this stage in our development process, I would suggest that Malawi should do away with some of these development philosophies and adopt a \u201cDevelopmental State\u201d approach to development, programming with an increased role of the state in planning and implementation of development programmes in all sectors of the economy. Most of the countries, including most of the European and Asian Tigers, developed because the state controlled the financial and monetary policies; it controlled all strategic industries and facilitated the growth of the industries in all the strategic value chains. I, therefore, don\u2019t understand the reasoning for us to open up the economy too soon like what we have done.<\/p>\n
Looking at the proposed areas in the upcoming strategy under development, I don\u2019t have a problem with the proposed areas. However, I would like to see the actual issues that will be proposed, if indeed they are worth taking into a national development strategy, to bring about change. From what I have heard, the five proposed areas will include: Agriculture and Climate Change management; Education and Skills Development; Energy and Industrial Development; Transport and ICT Infrastructure; and Health and Population Management. Out of the five areas, I would like to propose one on Governance and Institutional Development.<\/p>\n
On Agriculture and Climate Change Management, it should be noted that food is probably the most basic need and no country has ever developed without firstly addressing issues of food security. It is good that agriculture and climate change are in one strategic area as agriculture is the main contributor to climate change; but at the same time, it is the sector most affected by climate change. I would like to see how we are going to develop irrigation farming and management of strategic value chains like legumes, tobacco and other upcoming value chains like horticulture. We need to have well- structured markets in all strategic value chains. We have just launched the National Agriculture Policy and also the National Irrigation Policy which will all have their implementation frameworks, but it has to be noted that when it comes to financing, the national budget is framed based on MDGS targets. Now if the MDGS targets are not aligned to the sectors\u2019 implementation framework, then there will be a challenge in that most of the sector aspirations may not be financed through the national budget.<\/p>\n
On Education and Skills Development, I wish to thank the government for developing rural technical colleges. However, the courses being offered in these institutions need to be based on demand. As an agriculturist, I would like to see students being trained in agriculture processing and agriculture artisans\u2019 development. I would like to see increased investments in science and technology. Malawi has been exporting its agriculture products raw and this must be minimised. I would like to see strong proposals on increasing intake into public universities, and enhancing capacitates of the universities we have before building additional ones.<\/p>\n
Energy and Industrial Development is the engine room of development. We have all along been exporting raw materials and in the process, exported forex and jobs to other countries. I would like to see the strategy making proposals on: how much electricity we are going to generate during the period of the strategy; development of new sites for electricity generation; and possibilities of generating electricity from wind and new hydro station. On industrial development, I would like to see proposals on: Where we are going to construct new industrial parks; the commissioning of the industrial park in Chintheche and development of new parks in Karonga, Salima, Mangochi, Mulanje and Chikwawa districts. These must be developed along specific agricultural belts with specific products being earmarked under an innovation system approach. The government must initiate these and incentivise the private sector to invest. The technical colleges must, therefore, produce graduates in line with the needs of these industrial parks. The universities must increase intake to provide labour for the industry and at the same time, create a middle class to provide market for its products.<\/p>\n
Transport and ICT Infrastructure is one of the major reasons why much of Malawi is rural today and most Malawians are not connected to the outer world. Most agricultural products do not get to lucrative markets and the major issues are transportation and access to information. If we invest in these areas, we can open up most locked rural areas and this will provide vast opportunities for the rural farming communities.<\/p>\n
On Health and Population Management, the population growth rate in Malawi is worrisome. The resources that we currently have cannot sustain the population and this will be worse in the next 10 to 20 years. We need to make decisions now, on the number of children per family and how that can be achieved. I would like we propose a limit of three children per family, this may help in arresting the alarming population growth.<\/p>\n
Of the five proposed areas, I proposed one more on Governance and Institutional Development. Malawi can become a self-sustaining country only if we arrest corruption. Malawi is bleeding in all aspects and at all levels of the economy. I would like to see proposals on how we are going to deal with this problem, by strengthening institutions such as the Anti- Corruption Bureau, Financial Intelligence Unit, the Fiscal Police and the Auditor General, among others. Illegal externalisation of forex must be faced with harsh punishments. I would like to see the public reforms process reaching a logical conclusion.<\/p>\n
The author is a national director at Civil Society Agriculture Network (Cisanet). But he is writing this article in his personal capacity and as a PhD student in development studies at University of Malawi (Unima). <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is pleasing to note that the development of the new medium-term development strategy to replace the MGDS II is near completion. It is at the same time disappointing that this process has taken too long, and almost two years after the expiry of the MGDS II, we still do not have the document ready. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44035","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=44035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44039,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44035\/revisions\/44039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}