By Benadetta Chiwanda Mia
Malawi’s population has grown by 15.4 percent within six years, from 17.5 million people in 2018 to over 20.2 million by mid-2024, latest figures from the National Statistics Office (NSO) show.
In stark contrast, the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has seen minimal movement, rising only marginally from $567 in 2019 to a projected $571.93 in 2024.
This reflects a mere 0.86 percent growth, according to figures from Trading Economics.
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Economic expert Mavin Banda rated the trend as a growing concern as it pushed more people into the abyss of poverty.
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“If we were to liquidate the nation’s assets, each person would receive $571.93. While our production stagnates, our population is increasing at an alarming rate,” Banda said.
He said Malawi’s struggling economy is inadequately equipped to support such unchecked population growth due to a lack of serious policy direction and implementation capacity, which heavily relies on donor funding.
Banda attributes the slow growth in GDP per capita to the sluggish increase in economic productivity.
He said under current conditions, per capita GDP cannot rise proportionately with population growth, as the nation’s GDP growth does not align with the rate of population increase.
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Banda warned that without significant progress, per capita GDP may begin to decline.
“If the population grows faster than our economic output, resource quality and availability will decline due to the inverse relationship between resource allocation and population growth,” he said.
Given Malawi’s agricultre – based economy, Banda cautioned that without c o r r e s p o n d i n g increases in farming productivity, feeding the nation will become increasingly difficult as the population grows, as witnessed by a growing number of hunger-stricken families on an annual basis.
The economy is projected to grow by 1.8 percent this year.
Already, Malawi’s aspiration of becoming a lower middle income economy, at least by 2030, seems dim as gross domestic product (GDP) growth continues to be swayed by myriad shocks the country faces.
According to the first Malawi 2063 Implemetation Plan (MIP-1), Malawi set an ambitious target of graduating to a middle-income economy within a decade from 2020.
Lower middle-income economies are those with a gross national income (GNI) per capita of between $1,086 and $4,255.
But the country’s per-capita income, which is derived by dividing national income by population, is ranked one of the lowest in the world at around $600.
And to attain the mark, the country needed to be growing its economy in real GDP terms by, at least six percent per annum, in the space of ten years.
In the first four years of the MIP- 1 implementation period, Malawi economic growth has stagnated due to macroeconomic uncertainty and the lingering effects of the external shocks.
Since the launch, the economy has been growing by an average of 1.76 percent per year.
In 2023, the economy grew by 1.5 percent from 0.9 percent registered in 2022. And this year, the local economy is projected to grow by 1.8 percent.
