The National Planning Commission (NPC)—a public entity whose mandate is to draw and oversee implementation of long-term national development plans—has decried slow implementation of development plans outlined in the Malawi 2063 first 10- year Implantation plan (MIP-1).
The concern is contained in NPC’s 2023 annual report issued last week.
By 2030, just about seven years away, Malawi aspires to become a lower middle-income economy in line with aspirations embedded in the MIP-1.
To hit the middle-income mark, Malawi needs to be growing by at least six percent per year for over 10 years.
But the past three years, the situation has been worse as the economy has had an annual growth rate of not more than 2 percent.
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According to the NPC report, while implementation of about 80 percent of the interventions that were to start between 2021 and 2022 commenced, 60 percent of them were either off-track or registering slow progress.
However, the commission expresses optimism that while implementation progress of the MIP-1 was generally slow across all the pillars and enablers, there were some positive achievements under the same; such as the first pillar of Agriculture Productivity and Commercialisation, where the fisheries and irrigation subsectors made good progress.
“NPC will look towards a multi-stakeholder approach in ensuring coordination by both State and non-State actors in the implementation of development projects in a manner that will ensure that resources are not being spread thinly across less impactful interventions,” the report reads.
Speaking in a recent interview, Old Mutual Investment Group Economist Misozi Gondwe said Malawi still has potential to change its fortunes so long as right things are done.
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She added that government should ensure that its income sources are sustainable.
“In mind I have the agriculture sector and if we implement irrigation projects, we should be able to recover soon and if we are to religiously follow what IMF has outlined for us, we will recover sooner than we think,” she said.
Delivering the mid-year national budget in Parliament, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Simplex Chithyola Banda said government will align the budget to the Malawi 2063 development agenda.
He said this reform is aimed at providing an all-inclusive approach to resource allocation and provide opportunities for ministries, departments and agencies to coordinate and collaborate more during budget preparation and execution.
“By linking the budget to the Malawi 2063, government resources will be allocated to priority interventions as outlined in the Malawi 2063 First 10-Year Implementation Plan (MIP-1),” he said.
Malawi has a vision to become an inclusively wealthy and self-reliant nation in 40 years from now.
