Malawi slips on policy, institutional assessment
Malawi slipped on Country Policy Institutional Assessment (Cpia)—World Bank annual reports that describe Africa’s quality of policies and institutions underpinning development—to 3.2 in 2012 from 3.3 the year before. This is out of a score of six.
Cpia has four clusters—economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion and equity and public sector management.
The Cpia 2012 report, released last month, indicates that Malawi’s top score was in social inclusion and equity at 3.5 and performed poorly in structural policies with a score of 2.8.
Weighing in on the deteriorating performance, Ministry of Economic Planning and Development spokesperson Jollam Banda said Malawi’s performance is a reflection of the serious economic challenges the country faced prior to April 2012.
“To reduce these economic challenges, government formulated and is implementing the Economic Recovery Plan to ensure that our economy returns on track to a sustainable economic growth path. Government also formulated and is implementing the National Export Strategy to create a conducive environment for doing business.
“With the implementation of these policies and others at sectoral level aimed at creating a conducive environment for doing business, we are very confident that the overall score for Malawi for 2013 will be relatively better,” he said.
The report notes that the weakening of fiscal balances and minimal progress on rebuilding policy buffers reduced the Cpia score for the quality of fiscal policy to 3.3 in 2012, down from 3.4 in 2011. It also specifically notes that the score fell in Malawi and other seven countries.
The report also points out the decline in the score of Malawi’s debt policy, which is one of the countries whose score declined.
The World Bank, in the report, further notes that Malawi debt policy score declined while the regional debt policy component held steady at 3.3 in 2012.
It notes that several countries strengthened their debt management and reduced their debt levels which saw scores improve in seven countries namely; Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Comoros, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal.
The report, however, applauds Malawi for recording an improvement in education.
In the report, neighbouring Zambia achieved an overall score of 3.5, Zimbabwe 2.2, Tanzania 3.8, Sudan 2.3, Rwanda 3.8, Kenya 3.9 and Ethiopia 3.4. Sub-Sahara Africa scored an average of 3.2.
