Road to 2063 begins today
Malawi’s journey to the year 2063, when it aspires to become an upper-middle income economy, starts in earnest today when President Lazarus Chakwera unveils the Malawi 2063 first 10-year Implementation Plan (MIP-1).
The launch of the strategy is critical for Malawi, as it is expected to answer the question: How do we get there?
The strategy is also crucial as it would help Malawi move out of the group of the world’s Least Developed Countries to become a lower-middle income economy by 2030.
Malawi University of Business and Applied Studies economist Betchani Tchereni said the implementation strategy of Malawi 2063 is important in forcing economic
agents, be it government or private sector, to focus on the realisation of the vision.
“Without the strategy, we will have a vision that is as realistic as it is but not realisable.
“We need to avoid chaos at all cost. We must ensure that everybody owns the vision,” Tchereni said.
Centre for Research and Consultancy Director Milward Tobias said the first Malawi 2063 Implementation Plan is a guiding strategy to roll out the broad Malawi 2063 vision.
“Budget-wise, it is realistic. A figure of around K12 trillion over 10 years is attainable. However, there is a need for commitment to ensure that available resources finance projects that have proven to have value for money.
“The challenge that continues to haunt us is having a disjointed government. For example, you have Ministry of Finance working on fiscal consolidation on one hand and you have OPC [Office of the President and Cabinet] establishing Presidential Delivery Unit and Mec [Malawi Electoral Commission] introducing new constituencies on the other hand.
The latter two have the potential of bloating expenditure and directly countering what the former is working to achieve. Same economy same political administration. It is chaos,” Tobias said.
National Planning Commission Director General Thomas Munthali last week said the country needed $15 billion [about K12.3 trillion] to graduate to middle-income status by 2030.
Munthali said the MIP-1 was largely a collection of minimum catalytic interventions that have been determined to contribute to the MIP-1’s two key milestones of graduating the country to a middle-income status and meeting most of the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
“So, the interventions are largely meant to act as a guide to both State and non-State actors on the type of catalytic interventions we, as a country, wish to promote in the first 10 years of Malawi 2063 implementation,” Munthali said.
He said, by 2030, the vision is that every Malawian should be able to spend an average of $1,000 (K824,000.00) per year. Currently they spend around $380.
Secretary for Economic Planning, Development and Public Sector Reforms Winford Masanjala said the government had put measures aimed at ensuring that the first 10-year vision is implemented.
