Usi, NPC commend Care strategic plan
Natural Resources and Climate Change Minister Michael Usi and National Planning Commission (NPC) director general Thomas Munthali have commended Care International Malawi’s new business strategy as having potential to turnaround people’s lives.
Speaking in Lilongwe on Thursday, during the launch of the strategy, Usi and Munthali hailed the approach of targeting to improve the livelihood of ordinary Malawians in the face of economic and climatic shocks.
Usi said the approach sets a benchmark for inclusive and equitable practices in humanitarian aid and resilience.
He said: “Care’s dedication to empowering women and integrating local expertise into humanitarian efforts not only respects the unique cultural contexts, but also ensures that the solutions are sustainable and effective.”
On his part, Munthali said building people’s resilience in the face of economic and climatic shocks is in line with the Malawi 2063 development blueprint.
He said if Malawi is to graduate into a medium income economy by 2030, there is need to navigate the shocks that the country has been facing, and Care’s strategy is spot on in that aspect.
Said Munthali: “A number of non-State actors talk of rights of people, but you cannot meaningfully talk about rights if you don’t economically empower and build self-reliant communities.”
He also stressed the need to empower communities to be able to manage their natural resources, adding that soil, as a natural resource, needs good management since Malawi is an agro-based economy.
Care International Malawi country director Pamela Kuwali said the strategic plan aims at building resilience of over 3 million people by 2027.
She said: “Our goal is to reach to 3.5 million people by 2027 and to ensure that they have access to support and resources that they need to thrive.”
The newly-launched strategy focuses on creating empowered communities that are more resilient to economic and climatic shocks.
The solutions towards empowerment, according to Kuwali, shall be arrived at in a consultative way with the communities.
“It will not be an up-bottom approach but rather bottom-up approach,” she said.
