Five years into implementation of the first decade of Malawi2063 (MW2063)—the country’s long-term development blueprint—a new report shows that only 40 percent of planned interventions towards the vision are on track.
A progress report in the Malawi Government Economic and Fiscal Policy Statement (EFPS) 2026 on the First 10-year Implementation Plan of MW2063 (MIP-1), which passed its midpoint last week since its launch on January 19 2021, shows that government rolled out 87 percent of planned interventions in service of the vision, but only 40 percent are on track to meet their targets.
To address the challenges and accelerate progress, the Malawi Government is now developing an MIP-1 Accelerator Programme, a selective approach intended to fast-track “high-impact” interventions and push economic growth to above six percent.
This is the growth rate development economists say is necessary to have an impact on poverty levels in a country where 70 percent of the population lives below the poverty line of $2.15 (around K3 800) a day as defined by the World Bank.
But more than two years after the National Planning Commission (NPC) first warned Parliament that the country was drifting off course in the implementation of MW2063, the new figures suggest that the challenge has evolved from slow execution to weak outcomes.
From execution to outcomes
In May 2024, NPC told the Budget and Finance Committee of Parliament that Malawi was unlikely to attain the lower middle-income status by 2030, warning that the country could slip as far as 2045 without a radical course correction.
At the time, NPC reported that 47 percent of key MIP-1 interventions had been executed, up from 20 percent in 2022, framing this as improving momentum despite subdued growth of around two to three percent.
The EFPS now applies tougher performance lens. While the implementation breadth has expanded since 2024, the proportion of interventions delivering against targets remains limited. The shift reflects a growing recognition within government that activity alone is insufficient.
In an interview last week, NPC spokesperson Thom Khanje said the Accelerator Programme is being designed against that backdrop.
He said: “Malawi 2063 and its first implementation plan have always emphasised the importance of a conducive macroeconomic environment supported by prudent fiscal and economic policy.
“The on-going mid-term review is meant to identify implementation challenges and refine strategies so that the country can still attain lower middle-income status and meet most Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.”
However, Khanje noted that the mid-term review is still under development and that identification of specific interventions to be accelerated is yet to be concluded.
Growth ambition versus reality
The government’s ambition to lift growth above six percent sits uneasily with its own near-term projections.
Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) data show that economic growth has remained volatile and consistently below target since the launch of MW2063.
After rebounding to 4.6 percent in 2021, growth slowed sharply to a paltry 0.9 percent in 2022 before recovering modestly to 1.9 percent in 2023 and an estimated 2.7 percent in 2024, with a similar 2.7 percent projected for 2025.
The outcomes remain well below the six percent growth benchmark required to shift income levels and sustain MW2063’s first implementation plan.
The EFPS estimates economic growth of 3.8 percent in 2026, driven mainly by agriculture, tourism, mining and manufacturing—an improvement from recent years, but still well below the threshold needed to transform incomes.
In an interview, Economics Association of Malawi (Ecama) president Bertha Bangara-Chikadza said the widening gap between rollout and performance points to misalignment rather than flawed design.
“The design of MIP-1 was broadly sound, but implementation has been constrained by limited capacity, financing gaps and repeated shocks,” she said.
“Our budget analysis with NPC showed distortions. For example, 26 percent of the development budget going to agriculture while tourism and mining combined received about three percent.”
Bangara-Chikadza, who teaches economics at the University of Malawi (Unima) in Zomba, cautioned that growth above six percent would remain aspirational unless binding constraints—macroeconomic instability, foreign-exchange shortages, high inflation and unreliable energy supply—are resolved.
Budgets aligned, funding uneven
While there is effort to align national budgets to MW2063 pillars and enablers, fiscal execution has been uneven.
Budget data from the 2025/26 financial statement show wide variations between approved estimates, mid-year revisions and likely outturns in 2024/25, pointing to funding volatility that has constrained implementation.
In the 2024/25 fiscal year, economic infrastructure and human capital development were consistently protected, with infrastructure outturns slightly exceeding approved levels and allocations rising sharply to K3.66 trillion in the proposed 2025/26 budget. Human capital funding also increased to K2.41 trillion.
By contrast, private sector dynamism, mind-set change and some industrialisation interventions remained marginal.
Private sector dynamism fell from an approved K3.7 billion in 2024/25 to a likely outturn of K2.5 billion, before rising modestly to K5.5 billion in the proposed 2025/26 estimates. Analysts note that these are among the very enablers NPC flagged in 2024 as lagging.
Thinly spread ambition
Scotland-based Malawian economist Velli Nyirongo said the Accelerator’s logic of “doing less, but doing it better” has economic merit, but warned that the growth assumptions underpinning it are fragile.
“Ambition has often outpaced fiscal reality, resulting in interventions that exist on paper, but lack the scale or consistency to deliver results,” he said.
“Expecting accelerated growth above six percent while fiscal consolidation and tight monetary policy remain in place is internally challenging.”
Nyirongo added that without visible gains, the risk is a further erosion of policy credibility and investor confidence, leading to stop-start reforms.
Governance and accountability risks
Beyond economics, analysts warn that selective acceleration carries governance risks if not tightly safeguarded.
Economic governance analyst Willy Kambwandira said concentrating resources on a narrow set of interventions could weaken transparency and sideline scrutiny of non-prioritised sectors.
“Selective acceleration retains legitimacy only if insulated from political discretion,” he said. “Without publicly disclosed criteria, independent technical scoring and mandatory oversight by a technocratic shortcut that rewards visibility and loyalty rather than economic returns.”
Private sector constraint
Unima economics lecturer Edward Leman said MW2063’s fate hinges on both public and private investment—yet both remain constrained.
“High inflation and exchange-rate volatility have raised project costs and disrupted procurement, while governance weaknesses dilute already scarce resources,” he said. “On the private side, high interest rates and foreign-exchange constraints have discouraged long-term investment.”
Leman described the Accelerator as a pragmatic response to binding resource limitations, but warned that prioritisation alone cannot substitute for economy-wide momentum.
“Malawi 2063 ultimately requires a ‘big push’ driven by scaled-up investment, productivity gains and structural transformation,” he said. “Failure in selected sectors could undermine the entire strategy, echoing the experience of Vision 2020.”
Through MW2063, Malawi envisions a transformation into “a self-reliant, industrialised, upper middle-income economy by 2063” anchored on three pillars of agricultural productivity and commercialisation, industrialisation and urbanisation.
