National Planning Commission (NPC) Director General Thomas Munthali has cited wealth creation as a key tool for attaining Malawi (MW) 2063 goals.
He said this is the reason MW 2063 has moved the focus from poverty alleviation to wealth creation.
Munthali said this on Friday at a Media Seminar on Strategic Development Frameworks and Progress at Bvumbwe in Thyolo District.
“To meet our aspirations, we must embrace a developmental state philosophy, as espoused on Page 10 of the Malawi 2063 [document]. We must create wealth by ensuring that the State is playing an active role in creating trail-brazing investments.
“We cannot create wealth by hoping that the private sector will do it alone; it will take us a long time [if we do that]. MDC [Malawi Development Corporation] was a trail-blazer; we need to do the same by, for example, bringing our own mining company on board because we have to know where our money [generated by the mining sector] is going,” Munthali said.
He added that research would be key to national sustainable development, saying this is the reason Malawi has come up with its own National Development Agenda, which is serving as a guiding tool for researchers.
“We want research that will benefit Malawi,” he said.
Among other things, the agenda seeks to facilitate the creation of new vision and generate evidence for policy programmes for the vision and Malawi Implementation Plan 1.
It also seeks to drive the agenda of a focused and targeted research, innovations and technologies servicing Malawi’s vision and strategic development goals, among other things.
It also seeks to foster collaboration and partnerships on research and development for impactful development, apart from facilitating targeted resource mobilisation on research and development focused on national priorities.
At the seminar, journalists were sensitised to issues such as the three pillars of MW2063, namely agricultural productivity and commercialisation, industrialisation, which includes mining, and urbanisation, which includes tourism.
They were also sensitised to issues hinging on the seven enablers of MW 2063, which are mindset change, effective governance systems and institutions, enhanced public sector performance, private sector dynamism, human capital development, economic infrastructure and environmental sustainability.
Apart from Munthali, NPC officials that made presentations are senior monitoring and evaluation officer Joy Karim Masache, senior development planning specialist Hope Chavula and research manager Andrew Jamali.
