Malawi slips on development index
External crises and climate change-driven disasters have eroded Malawi’s capacity to finance development, which has impeded human development, it has emerged.
Malawi Human Development Index (HDI) value now stands at 0.508 from 0.512, leaving it on position 174 out 193 globally.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Nancy Tembo has since pleaded with the country’s creditors to consider debt relief to free resources for development and address the current pressure points.
Speaking when she presided over the launch of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Human Development Report in Lilongwe yesterday, the minister subtly blamed developed countries for not relaxing conditions of access to climate financing.
She said: “A lot of resources have to go towards responding to these shocks and there is the debt burden, all these are taking up the little resources we should have been using for development.”
The trend, provided by the HDI report, places Malawi among other least developed countries that have relapsed since 2018.
Despite the poor countries starting to pick up in 2023, the report notes that the climate-related losses have pushed the poor countries back, leaving them off-track on most Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators.
For Malawi specifically, the report indicates that the slip between 2019 and 2021 came after a 20-year growth momentum and has put the country off-track in achieving the SDGs by 2030.
The UNDP further wonders why the situation cannot be reversed when options are available to redistribute the available wealth to poor people and build resilience for sustainable growth to meet the SDGs in 2030.
Speaking in an interview on the sidelines of the report launch, UNDP resident representative Fenella Frost said as the world is coming together in September to discuss progress on the SDGs, it is important to look at recommendations from the report to regain the lost momentum and suggest ways to ensure concessional financing of poor countries by the highly developed countries to ensure investments in industries that can catalyse development.
However, she mentioned one progress that stands out—digital transformation—saying the digital national identity cards when fully utilised, has potential to bring efficiency in a wide range of public services and enable huge savings on cost of service delivery.
National Planning Commission (NPC), which is championing a wealthy and self-reliant Malawi by 2063, indicated that Malawi’s progress boils down to wealth creation, adding the country is not doing well despite sitting on huge resources that can be used for development.
NPC director of Knowledge and Learning Joseph Nagoli acknowledged that there is some progress that will start paying off soon.
“For us to excel as a country we have to go into the ATM [agriculture, tourism and mining] strategy with an addition of manufacturing so we produce goods and sell. Accessing the global market is a very important issue,” he said.
On his part, Africa Development Bank (AfDB) country manager Macmillan Anyanwu said Malawi and development partners need to work together in finding new solutions in view of the emerging climate related shocks and mobilise more resources for mitigation and building resilience.
Malawi’s economy has suffered cyclones and external shocks that have weighed heavily on economic output.
