By Taonga Sabola in Texas, US & Patricia Kapulula in Nairobi, Kenya:
President Lazarus Chakwera has said Malawi is not a poor country as it is sitting on abundance of wealth, most of which he said is yet to be explored.
Speaking to The Daily Times in Dallas, Texas, on the sidelines of the United States (US)-Africa Business Summit, Chakwera underscored the need for Malawi to find a way of quantifying the value of its wealth.
“We are a rich nation. What is important is to find a way of determining the total value of our wealth; a way of determining how much minerals the country has and the value of those minerals, even though they are still buried in the ground.
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“This will help us to go on the market to say, back home we have so much wealth, because people may look at us as poor, but we are not necessarily poor because we have abundance of wealth,” the President said.
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He added that it was encouraging to note that most of the US investors are already excited about the prospects of investing in Malawi because those who have been to the country have given them “a very good report”.
“So, we will continue to engage on matters to do with the law, matters to do with policy. Even the arbitration laws that we have enacted, you can’t find them anywhere else. It is only in Malawi.
“These are some of the issues that create a conducive environment for US investors and we hope that even at this summit, we will bring many that will be involved in agriculture, mining and tourism sectors as we have outlined. But energy is the enabler. So they can also invest there just like others have done,” Chakwera said.
US Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said her government is proud to have invested in energy, digital technology, climate security and infrastructure to combat food insecurity and enhance agriculture sustainability and health outcomes.
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Chakwera left the US for Nairobi, Kenya, where he is scheduled to address the Africa Fertiliser and Soil Health (AFSH) Summit, at the invitation of Kenyan President William Ruto.
The summit aims to bring together relevant stakeholders to underscore the critical role of fertiliser and soil health in stimulating sustainable pro- African agriculture.
Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture Sam Kawale has said Malawi is geared to ensure an improvement in fertiliser usage and soil management in the country in the next two years, thereby achieving greater results in the agricultural sector.
Kawale was speaking in Nairobi on the sidelines of AFSH Summit.
He said through policies and programmes put in place, the country will see a 25 percent jump in the usage of fertiliser as well as soil management.
Kawale said this will see Malawi achieving food and nutrition security and “tremendous economic progress”.
“Currently, the policies and programmes that we have put in place will help increase production of organic fertiliser, which is cheaper than chemical fertiliser. Organic fertiliser improves soil health because it puts nutrients back into the soil,” he said.
The summit, which has brought together stakeholders to highlight the crucial role of fertiliser and soil health in stimulating sustainable pro-poor productivity growth in African agriculture, will agree on an African Fertiliser and Soil Health Action Plan “that will deliver concrete recommendations to be taken by African leaders in the next 10 years”.
Kawale said Malawi has a lot of success stories and programmes and that it may not even take 10 years to ensure that the action plan is implemented.
African Union (AU) Commissioner for Agriculture, Rural Development, Blue Economy and Sustainable Environment, Josefa Sacko, said Malawi is doing well in fertiliser usage with 96 kilogrammes of fertiliser used per hectare compared to other countries which are at an average of 40 kilogrammes per hectare.
In June 2006, AU Heads of State and Government endorsed the Abuja Declaration on Fertiliser for the Africa Green revolution, a continental strategy to reverse the “worrying trend” of poor productivity of African soils.
The declaration focused on key targets required for agricultural growth, food security and rural development in Africa, with a focus on fertiliser.
