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Malawi |
DEVELOPMENT
The Malawi Millennium Development Goals 2003 report, reveals that Malawi will not manage to achieve set world millennium development goals by the deadline of 2015, unless there are radical changes in policies, attitudes, mindset, political, and technical commitment
The development goals (MDG)s set out in the Millennium Declaration and adopted at the United Nations’ Millennium Summit in September 2000, include: Halving the proportion of the world’s people living below the United Nations poverty threshold of US $1 a day; halving the number of people without access to safe drinking water; ensuring that children — both boys and girls — will be able to complete a full primary school course; halving the under-five child mortality rate; reducing the maternal mortality rate by 75%; reducing radically the incidence of HIV/AIDS. The general aim is to combat poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination against women.
Malawi’s situation
Osten Chulu is an economic consultant and when presenting his MDG 2003 Report to the Budget and Finance Committee of Malawi’s parliament, said that only two MDGs — increasing access to safe drinking water and reducing the under-five mortality rate — are possible with only minimum changes in policy and resource allocation. Chulu said that reducing the maternal mortality rate and halving the number of people living on less than $1 a day are the most difficult MDGs to achieve, and require special attention and resource allocation. Also, the slow progress in achieving behavioral change is making an immediate reduction in HIV infection rates difficult to attain. Generally speaking, the MDGs are achievable only with radical changes in policies and attitudes.
Chulu stated that in order for Malawi to halve the population living in poverty by 2015, the incidence of poverty should decline by 2% per annum. «The way things are at present, it’s a tall order for Malawi which is experiencing a poor economic showing, and the poverty rate, instead of decreasing, is constantly increasing».
And what about the water problem? In Malawi, there are currently about 15,287 hand pumps capable of serving 4 million people, and 56 rural piped water supply schemes with over 10,000 taps capable of serving 1.2 million people, but a great deal of renovation and repair work needs to be carried out in this sector.
If Malawi is to achieve the MDGs, an area that must be improved is the health sector. But a Service Delivery Satisfactory Survey by Malawi’s civil society, shows that the country has an uphill battle to ensure this is achieved. The same survey also gives a gloomy picture on education, which is another setback in Malawi achieving the MDG s. It says there is a steady decline in the number of children enroled in school from one grade to another. In rural areas, the survey indicates that the average number of pupils enroled in Grade One is 183; by Grade Five, the number drops to 74; by Grade Eight to 39. A similar tend is noted in urban schools. At Grade One, 350 pupils are enroled. By Grade Five, the number declines to 261. And by Grade Eight to 138.
Vis à vis the MDG s Malawi presents a somewhat gloomy picture though this trend could be reversed if the country were to be politically and socially committed.
- Frank Jomo, Malawi, October 2003 — © Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgment