By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE , May 18 2009 (IPS)

When Malawians go to vote on May 19, they are expected to put their cross next to the party they believe will do most to reduce poverty. Political campaigns in the run-up to the presidential and parliamentary elections have centred around poverty, agriculture, food security and employment.

MCP and UDF supporters campaign for their parties at a political rally in Lilongwe. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

Kalibu says her husband died of malaria because he could not access treatment – they did not have the money for him to travel to the nearest public hospital, located 25 kilometres from his home.

As Kalibu goes to vote this week, she says she will choose a president and a member of parliament who will make sure to improve the economic and social well-being of her family.

“I want a president and an MP who has the poor people’s interest at heart. I want my family to have access to food, clothing, good health facilities and proper housing. I want my children to have access to proper education,” said Kalibu.

Most Malawians going to the polls will cast their votes based on similar considerations, reckons the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), a coalition of 100 civil society organisations, community-based organisations, media, trade unions and academia.

Basic needs, such as food and employment, are key issues in Malawi. Up to 65 percent of the country’s 13.1 million people are living below the poverty line of less than one dollar per day.

MEJN executive director Andrew Kumbatira says many Malawians will vote for political parties that campaign for poverty reduction, improved health care, increased infrastructure and better education standards.

Agriculture is another important issue that will determine people’s choice in the elections, Kumbatira says. Eighty-five percent of Malawians rely on agriculture for their livelihoods, and the agricultural industry generates up to 70 percent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

“During their campaigns, the front-runners in the presidential election have been talking about the importance of boosting agricultural productivity. Most people will take the issue of food security seriously when they enter the polling booth to vote,” said Kumbatira.

Various opinion polls have indicated as front-runners current president Bingu wa Mutharika, in direct competition with John Tembo, leader of the country’s oldest political grouping, Malawi Congress Party (MCP), who has formed a coalition with the United Democratic Front (UDF), led by the country’s former president, Bakili Muluzi.

The presidential election is being contested by five other candidates: Loveness Gondwe of the National Rainbow Coalition, who is the country’s first female presidential candidate, Alliance for Democracy’s Dindi Gowa Nyasulu, Stanley Masauli of the Republican Party, independent presidential candidate James Nyondo and Kamuzu Chibambo of People’s Transformation Party.

The leading political parties are well aware of the need to fight poverty and hunger and improve basic services, such as health and education. During election campaigns in the past few weeks, the MCP, for example, has promised to introduce a universal agricultural subsidy programme, while the DPP has pledged to strengthen an existing subsidy for resource-poor smallholder farmers.

In its manifesto, the MCP says it will support the people of Malawi to feed themselves, clothe themselves, live healthily, lead productive lives and live in decent houses by scrapping taxes on domestic housing materials.

The MCP also promises to overhaul the health system, which is currently seen as a failure, and re-establish professionalism, efficiency and integrity in the civil service. “I want the lives of the people, particularly the poor ones in the villages, to improve,” MCP’s Tembo says.

The DPP, on the other hand, claims it has successfully implemented developmental polices in the five years it has been in power and suggests people should vote for the ruling party if they want continued development.

The DPP has also pledged to invest heavily in education by providing more funding to schools and colleges and to be more committed to raising educational standards.

However, political experts are afraid election manifestos may remain lip service. Most campaign promises made by the different parties have been vague, and politicians have refrained from detailing what policies and programmes they will implement to improve service delivery.

“People will be voting while groping in the dark. No party has managed to articulate properly how they will execute their promises and this might encourage people to vote on ethnic lines,” said Blessings Chinsinga, political analyst at the University of Malawi.

While agreeing that most Malawians will vote for candidates who promise to tackle poverty, hunger and unemployment, Chinsinga said ethnicity is likely play a role in the elections.

“In the past, we have seen Malawians vote on regional as well as ethnic grounds. They either voted for a president who comes from their area or for a president who they think sympathises with their tribe,” he explained.

Christopher Gondwe, a registered voter from Mzuzu in northern Malawi, confirmed Chinsinga’s theory when telling IPS he will vote for a president who is interested in developing the whole country without segregation.

“The north, for example, has been marginalised for a long time. We want a president who will not only develop the two other regions but the north as well,” said Gondwe.

Gondwe is unlikely to put his cross next to the name of Malawi’s current president Mutharika who belongs to the Lhomwe tribe of southern Malawi. Mutharika has been repeatedly accused by analysts and politicians, including his main contender Tembo, of giving preference to people from his tribe when appointing cabinet ministers and parliamentarians.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, May 14 2009 (IPS)

A group of civil society organisations in Malawi is pushing for changes to the country’s controversial social cash transfer scheme which has caused tension in communities as it attempts to separate the poor from the ‘‘very poor’’ in a country where some 65 percent of people live on less than a dollar a day.

Some of the traditional leaders that decide who is poorer than who. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda

The ministry of women and child development and the ministry of economic planning and development are implementing the social cash transfer scheme, which was launched in September 2006.

Technical and financial assistance for the programme comes from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The Institute for Policy Research and Social Empowerment (IPRSE), which leads 50 non-governmental organisations advocating for social protection, argues that the scheme is creating problems.

The reason for this is its targeting of a category of ‘‘ultra-poor’’ in a country where most people live below the poverty line of less than one dollar per day.

IPRSE Director of Programmes and Development Paul Msoma says that the scheme attempts to separate the poorest from the poor. The question that has arisen is, ‘‘who is really poor and who is not poor enough to benefit from the programme’’, Msoma tells IPS in an interview.

IPRSE is concerned that, given the vast numbers of very poor people in Malawi, especially in the rural areas, providing assistance to a few of them will not make a great difference towards the country’s goal of reducing poverty and hunger.

‘‘If you go into a typical Malawi village, almost everyone is very poor yet the cash transfer scheme is targeting very few people,’’ Msoma points out.

The civil society grouping queries the system used to identify beneficiaries as it poses difficulties for communities. Recipients of the money from the scheme are nominated by a local community social protection committee (CSPC) which is composed of community members. These include the traditional leaders of the area and other respected members of the villages.

The CSPC draws up a list of households living in grim conditions and refers this to a district social protection sub-committee (SPSC), made up of social workers and provincial government officials. The SPSC verifies and approves nominations.

This process ‘‘is creating complications. The people who are equally poor are being asked to make decisions to make others better-off. There should be a better way of identifying beneficiaries,’’ contends Msoma.

He explains that the targeting of very few people is also causing ‘‘unnecessary tensions’’ in the poor communities.

In Mchinji, central Malawi, 65-year-old Malita Namalomba laments that her neighbours ‘‘despise’’ her. Namalomba, a widow, looks after seven grandchildren. Two of her children died within two years and she had to adopt her grandchildren.

‘‘I am happy that the cash transfer scheme has enabled me to look after all these children. The money makes me able to feed them all and send them to school,’’ she admits. But she is worried that other families living in poverty are unhappy with not benefiting from the scheme.

‘‘I was lucky that I was identified to benefit from the scheme. All my neighbours are poor and they need similar help. They despise me now and I can’t do anything about it,’’ says Namalomba.

The amount of money disbursed to beneficiaries like Namalomba is dependent on household size. The minimum grant is 4.20 dollars for a household of one person. The scheme also encourages school enrolment: an extra 1.30 dollars is granted for each child enrolled in primary school and 2.60 dollars for children in secondary school.

Nicholas Freeland, programme director at the Regional Hunger and Vulnerability Programme (RHVP), agrees with the local NGOs that some negative lessons have indeed emerged from the pilot social cash transfer scheme.

The RHVP supports policy-makers and practitioners concerned with food security, social protection and vulnerability in southern Africa and is funded by the UK’s department for international development.

‘‘Community-based targeting is open to abuse. It does not work in a Malawian context to identify the most vulnerable people,’’ explains Freeland. This is because there is a little difference between the poorest households.

It is unfair and unethical to select only 10 percent of them to receive a transfer that will ‘‘leapfrog’’ them over almost equally poor members of the community. ‘‘Unless of course you re-target on a regular basis, which is complex and expensive,’’ states Freeland.

Experience in many other countries has shown that the best way to target the poorest in society is not to try to identify them individually but to use categories that are associated with a higher likelihood of poverty, such as elderly people, young infants, the disabled and women.

‘‘Such categories are much more easily understood by recipients and non-recipients alike, much less easy to exploit or corrupt, much simpler to administer and therefore much more politically acceptable,’’ Freeland tells IPS.

Despite these objections by NGOs, the Malawian government is planning on expanding the scheme. It is working on scaling up the cash transfers with an aim to eventually make them available to all districts in the country.

According to a government report, preliminary survey results indicate that the money is ‘‘properly’’ used by beneficiaries as it is invested in meeting people’s immediate, basic needs while some households are able to make some savings from the scheme.

The government has also come up with new guiding principles which include simplifying the programme so that it is well understood by communities.

Meanwhile, IPRSE has vowed to continue lobbying government to revisit the targeting of the social cash transfer scheme.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Apr 29 2009 (IPS)

An influential women rights organisation in Malawi, Women in Law in Southern Africa-Malawi (WILSA-Malawi), is suing the government of Malawi for preventing women from accessing safe abortion.

Malawian law prohibits abortion – Section 149 of the country’s penal code says any person who administers abortion shall be liable to imprisonment for 14 years, while Section 150 indicates that any woman who solicits abortion is liable to seven years imprisonment.

But WILSA-Malawi’s executive director, Seodi White, calls the existing laws nonsensical because they infringe on women’s rights. She says they force women to seek back-street abortions from traditional healers and illegal clinics thereby putting their lives in danger.

"These laws do not make sense at all. They are contributing towards the death of so many women. We need to get rid of them as soon as possible," urged White.

Government statistics in Malawi indicate that up to 30 percent of maternal deaths in the country are due to abortion. Malawi’s maternal mortality is one of the highest in Africa – second only to war-torn Sierra Leone.

White says refusing women the right to abort is discrimination. "Access to legal and safe abortion services is essential to the protection of women’s rights to non-discrimination and equality. Where women are compelled to continue unwanted pregnancies, it puts them at a disadvantage because abortion is a medical procedure that only women need," she told IPS.

White argues that the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has implied that the denial of medical procedures that only women need is a form of discrimination against women. "Therefore, restrictive abortion laws may amount in certain cases to discrimination against women," she concluded.

WILSA-Malawi is also contending that when pregnancy is unwanted, a legal requirement to continue the pregnancy may constitute government intrusion on a woman’s body. "We are therefore taking the Malawi government to court for failing to protect the women in the country," explained White.

WILSA-Malawi, whose main mandate is to work towards improving women's human rights from a legal and social perspective, has already celebrated one major success in changing legislation to improve women’s rights.

In 2006, the organisation facilitated the enactment of the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act, after a long battle against the country’s deeply rooted culture and beliefs that wife beating was normal.

Legal battle

Meanwhile, a number of other organisations have joined WILSA-Malawi in the debate on unsafe abortion. For instance, the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC), a government body working on developing and sustaining a culture of respect for human rights among all people in Malawi, indicated that one of the issues the country needs to tackle is abortion.

"This is part of addressing reproductive and sexual health rights of all Malawians. This is important, because there is overwhelming evidence of dangerous termination of pregnancies among women and girl children of Malawi," said MHRC executive director Dr. Aubrey Mvula.

He says the initiative is in line with global women’s rights protocols, such as the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the Beijing Declaration and its Platform of Action. ICPD objectives include universal access to reproductive care services, while the Beijing Declaration urges governments to review laws that contain punitive measures against women who undergo illegal abortion.

Mvula stressed the fact that international human rights law supports the need to terminate pregnancy to promote and protect other human rights.

"Therefore, MHRC submits that Malawi needs to move forward and significantly promote the health of women and the girl child by making sure that all dangerous pregnancies acquired through unwanted, ill-advised and accidental sexual activities or economic problems need to be terminated on that basis," he said.

Unsafe abortions

In response to demands by MHRC and WILSA-Malawi, the Reproductive Health Unit (RHU) within Malawi’s Department of Health admitted that unsafe abortions are rampant in the country.

RHU deputy director Fannie Kachale points out that most countries with low maternal death rates, such as South Africa and Ghana, have had to permit induced abortion and that legalising abortion has not led to increased number of abortions in those countries. "It has just shifted [numbers from] unsafe to safe abortions," she said.

Kachale explained that while the government of Malawi does not permit abortion, it indirectly acknowledges the fact that illegal abortions take place, because it provides post-abortion care to women who underwent abortions and have developed complications.

According to IPAS, an international organisation working globally to increase women's ability to exercise their sexual and reproductive rights and to reduce abortion-related deaths and injuries, by providing post-abortion care, the government of Malawi is confirming that there is a problem that needs to be resolved.

Dr. Eunice Brookman-Amissah, vice president of IPAS Africa, told IPS that women usually have valid and important reasons for abortion. "Women tend to seek abortions when pregnancies are not supported by their partners, families or communities, when the pregnancy may threaten the woman’s health or survival or when the foetus has abnormalities. It’s not for immoral reasons," she said.

Brookman-Amissah also explained that the medical process of abortion is usually simpler and cheaper than post-abortion care. "Induced abortion is one of the safest medical procedures. But with unsafe abortion, women easily develop complications, such as hemorrhage, infections, incomplete abortion and secondary infertility. These conditions are very expensive to treat," said Dr. Brookman-Amissah.

As the example of Malawi shows, making abortion illegal does not prevent them from happening. "Where safe abortion is unavailable, women go for unsafe abortion through the ingestion of herbs, bleach, gasoline and gun powder. Others go for vaginal insertions of sharp tools such as twigs and pouches filled with arsenic," explained Brookman-Amissah.

Some women have also been reported to hit themselves into the stomach, while others throw themselves from high places to abort the foetus. According to IPAS, apart from death, consequences of unsafe abortion include significant short and long-term illness, injury and infertility.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Mar 23 2009 (IPS)

Malawi does not have accurate statistics that define the extent of tuberculosis (TB) cases within its borders, and there are fears that only half of those infected with the disease are able to access testing and treatment.

Women line up to have their children tested for TB at a district hospital in Mchinji, Malawi. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

In the 1980s, TB infections were much lower, with public health facilities having to treat only 5,000 TB patients per year.

Malawi’s fears that only half of those infected with the disease are accessing treatment are supported by 2008 World Health Organisation (WHO) data, which estimate that there were more than 50,000 new cases of TB in the country last year. Malawi falls short of the WHO recommended treatment success rate of 85 percent by at least 13 percent. But all existing data are estimates.

NTCP has therefore embarked on a campaign to provide universal access to TB testing and treatment. Sputum collection centres have been established in hard-to-reach rural areas that don’t have health facilities. Members of local communities are volunteering to collect sputum from people with TB symptoms. The volunteers then transport the samples to the closest health facility for testing.

According to the United Nations, up to 85 percent of Malawi’s population lives in rural areas where about 60 percent of the people live below the poverty line of $1 per day. It is difficult for them to seek medical care when they need it, especially if public health facilities are far away from their villages and they don’t have the money to pay for transportation.

"We have discovered through surveys that most people in villages are not accessing health services such as TB detection services easily. This is mainly because of the distances they have to travel to get to the nearest health centres and also because of the high poverty levels," explained Nyangulu. Residents of rural areas have to travel an average of five kilometres to reach a clinic or hospital.

Lack of knowledge about TB has also been cited as contributing to the fact that few Malawians get tested, said Nyangulu. He said most people in rural areas have little information about the disease and therefore fail to recognise its symptoms.

Mtsiriza, a rural community on the outskirts of Malawi’s capital Lilongwe, is one area that has benefited from the universal access initiatives launched by NTCP. Now that sputum collection centres have been established in the community, people have been flocking to the centre to be tested in high numbers. NTCP is also encouraging home-based care services, delivered by community volunteers who observe and follow up on treatment for TB patients.

John Chiguduli (48) is one of the patients who has been cured from TB due to the new centre in Mtsiriza. "I have been sick for about a year, and I haven’t been able to work at all. I felt very weak but I could not access testing services because the hospital is far away from here, and I didn’t have money for transport. I only got diagnosed with TB when a medical facility was set up here in my village," Chiguduli told IPS.

He believes the NTCP initiative of bringing health care to the people, instead of expecting people to make their way to health facilities, has saved his life. "I nearly died. The testing service came to my area just in time to save me," said Chiguduli, who is now able to work his fields again.

The community TB initiative also encourages all members of a household with a TB patient, especially children, to be tested.

In addition, NTCP offers ‘active screening’ at its TB testing centres, which means that HIV testing is offered in combination with TB tests. This way, government tries to identify the large number of TB/HIV co-infections, which the national health department estimates to be 77 percent.

NTCP has also established walk-in centres in the country’s main health facilities, such as referral hospitals, to enable people to access TB testing services without having to join the long queues of patients requiring other hospital services.

Hospital waiting times are usually long because Malawi is facing acute shortage of health personnel. The Department of Health indicates that up to 120 registered nurses leave the country per year for better-paying jobs in the developing world. Currently, 50 patients are looked after by only one nurse, while one doctor is responsible for 64,000 patients, according to health department figures.

In addition to bringing TB testing to rural areas as part of its universal access strategy, the NTCP makes special efforts to provide testing services in other TB hot spots, such as prisons. "Most of the prisons in the country are overcrowded and this becomes a breeding ground for TB," said Nyangulu, explaining that prison authorities are now encouraged to offer TB testing to every new prisoner and offer testing services for all prisoners on a regular basis.

Yet, health experts realise that efforts to curb TB will be less effective if Malawi does not have accurate statistics on the TB situation in the country. The health department is therefore planning to embark upon a national prevalence survey later this year. "Right now, we only have estimates, but we need specific figures to be able to treat all cases properly," said Nyangulu.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Mar 20 2009 (IPS)

Water has become the very essence of economic development for a rural community of Ngolowindo, in Malawi’s lake district of Salima, where households are reducing poverty thanks to irrigation.

Irrigation and cooperative farming have improved the livelihoods for the Ngolowindo Horticultural Cooperative Society Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

Taking advantage of the fresh water from Lake Malawi, the people of Ngolowindo are using simple irrigation methods to grow such produce as tomatoes, cabbages, mustard, onions, okra, green pepper, green beans, lettuce and maize on 17 hectares of land.

A vibrant agricultural cooperative, the Ngolowindo Horticultural Cooperative Society, has since emerged in the area and 159 people are now members. Each individual farmer is allocated a small piece of communal land and assigned a specific crop to grow. The produce is collected into one lot and is put on the market.

Eluby Tsekwe, the cooperative’s chairperson, proudly told IPS that her community has become the largest supplier of fresh produce to the residents of the country’s capital city, Lilongwe.

“We supply all the main supermarkets and individual vendors in the capital city with fresh produce which they sell to residents of the city. We make a substantial sum of money from there and this sustains our livelihoods,” she said.

Tsekwe said that members have to be 18 years and above. “We don’t want to get children into the cooperative since we believe they should be in school and not be involved in any type of child labour,” said Tsekwe.

For Tsekwe, a single mother of five, the financial benefits of this collective endeavour are evident; all her children, aged between four and 19, are in school. Despite her divorce leaving her alone as head of her household, she is also able to provide three meals every day to all her children in a country where, according to the United Nations, seven out of 10 households typically run out of food before every harvesting season.

Tsekwe has also managed to build a house of bricks with an iron sheet roof and cement floors. “A typical house here is one with mud walls and floors with a grass-thatched roof but I can afford to live better and I am very proud of myself,” she said.

But it has not been all rosy for the Ngolowindo project, according to Coordinator of Ngolowindo Horticultural Cooperative Society, Mercy Butao.

The cooperative coordinator explains that the agricultural initiative started at Ngolowindo in 1985 as an irrigation scheme and only became a cooperative in 2001. She said the project was initially driven by the government’s departments of water and agriculture through traditional leaders and community members.

“As a scheme, individual farmers worked in their own fields. They could only benefit from communal irrigation systems, but they were each others’ competitors when it came to marketing their produce,” Butao told IPS. During this time, the maintenance of irrigation structures such as drainage canals and irrigation canals was suffering.

The scheme was turned into a cooperative to improve marketing of the produce and for a more organized management of the project, according to Butao, but this also solved problems of maintenance.

“The farmers applied for funding from the European Union soon after forming the cooperative, and they used the money to upgrade their agricultural skills in irrigation farming and modern ways of crop production,” said Butao.

The Ngolowindo farmers have also been trained in marketing fundamentals, financial management, organisation management and agro-processing.

The Cooperation for the Development of Emerging Countries (Cospe), an Italian non-governmental organisation, has also assisted the Ngolowindo Horticultural Cooperative Society in the constructing irrigation structures and in human resources. Butao, for instance, is an agricultural expert, employed by Cospe since 2002 to provide technical support to the cooperative.

“The Ngolowindo project has grown so much and it is now moving into agro-processing,” Butao told IPS. She said in the absence of a processing project, there had been a lot of wastage of produce since the crops being grown are perishables.

“The cooperative has now diversified into the production of tomato juice and tomato sauce,” said Butao.

The project has 18 people working in agro-processing, using hand-powered machines to process the agricultural products. “We are yet to make it big in the agro-processing business. Our products are not developed enough to compete on market but we are working hard towards advancing further,” said Butao.

The cooperative is also working towards diversifying into livestock farming so as to use excess produce from the farming to feed the animals. “We also want to promote the use of animal manure in our farm,” Butao said.

Another member of the cooperative, Ginacio Kamoto, explains that he has benefited a lot from the cooperative. “I am able to provide employment to some people in my area. I employ them as casual labourers to assist me with farming. I employ up to six people per growing season,” said Kamoto.

But people like Tsekwe and Kamoto are still the exception in Malawi where up to 65 percent of the 13.1 million people live below the poverty line of less than a dollar per day.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the country is only irrigating 72,000 of 400,000 hectares of irrigable land. The country is yet to fully utilise Lake Malawi, a fresh water length which stretches the length of the country is the ninth largest lake in the world.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Mar 4 2009 (IPS)

Sitting side by side, clothed in bright traditional outfits complete with headgear, they looked like any of the women who always dance and ululate for politicians at rallies.

Dancers at a political event -- women are gradually taking a seat at the high table. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

Malawi’s current president, Bingu wa Mutharika, has also picked a woman, Joyce Banda, to be his running-mate in the elections. But it is yet to be seen if the women will indeed make it to the top.

Such political positions have so far been a domain for men in Malawi – a woman’s role has mainly been limited to dancing and cheering for their leaders – mostly men.

For instance, Gondwe, the country’s first female presidential aspirant, has not had it easy in politics. She formed the Rainbow Coalition Party because the Alliance for Democracy (Aford), the party she has represented since 1994 – rising higher than any woman before her in the national assembly, where she was voted to the position of First Deputy Speaker – refused to endorse her as presidential candidate.

“I am an achiever and capable of bringing positive change to people’s lives and I am qualified to lead this nation,” Gondwe told the local media upon presenting her presidential nomination letter to the Malawi Electoral Commission.

She said if elected, she would like to make more employment opportunities available to the youth, in a country where the unemployment rate is at 45.5 percent.

Gondwe also aims to improve the conditions of service for civil servants who are the lowly paid and to support small holder farmers who play a big role in Malawi’s economy, which is predominantly agricultural.

“I would also like to see the maternal death rate going down so that women are able to participate in development work,” Gondwe said. Malawi’s maternal mortality is one of the highest in the continent at 807 deaths per 100,000 live births.

Banda, President Mutharika’s running-mate, who was Malawi’s foreign minister before her appointment, also told the media that she has been fighting a hostile environment as a female politician.

“I have had to learn how to navigate and find my way. People have seen my performance as a member of parliament. I am not emotional but solid and realistic. I have done my best as a cabinet minister and I will prevail in any political, social and economic storm,” said Banda.

All women vying for political positions in Malawi are benefitting from the support being rendered by the 50:50 Campaign, a national programme on increasing women’s participation in politics and decision-making positions. The campaign is being coordinated by the Ministry of Women and Child Development with support from international donors including the United Nations.

The programme provides campaign finances and materials to women aspiring to political positions, to expose them to the public through media and to provide them with training in personal development. Up to 150 women have presented their nominations papers to contest for the 193 parliamentary seats. Currently, there are only 27 women out of the 193 members in Malawi’s Parliament.

Programme coordinator for the 50:50 Campaign in the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Bertha Sefu, admits that it is an uphill battle to achieve equal participation for women in decision-making positions.

Sefu told IPS that Malawian society favours men more than women but that the 50:50 Campaign has managed to position women well and that the country is now realising that women can be trusted with decision-making positions.

“We have seen that the women candidates for political positions are getting more and more support from both men and women and we hope this means that the situation is changing. We are optimistic that we will have women in the very top positions of government by May,” said Sefu.

Beyond the selection of Banda as Mutharika’s running-mate, people have to wait for the elections results in May to see if indeed more women are being given the opportunity to be political leaders.

While the situation seems to be growing more favourable for women in politics; it is a different story in the civil service and private sector. Currently, only seven women out of 38 are in ministerial positions – only four are full ministers and three are deputies. Just five out of 38 permanent secretaries in government ministries are women and just 21 percent in other top level positions are held by women. In the judiciary, women are not well represented either, since there are only four female judges out of 27.

On the positive side, the positions of chairperson of Malawi electoral commission, clerk of parliament, chairperson of Malawi Human Rights commission, attorney General and parliamentary draftsperson are currently being held by women.

Gender specialist for the United Nations in Malawi Veronica Njikho says the focus now is on the forthcoming elections but once that is over, there will be a review of the 50:50 campaign to start focusing on the participation of women in all levels of decision-making including the private sector.

“We will also be lobbying for the participation of women in trade union movements,” said Njikho.

Meanwhile it seems like the women of Malawi would still want to continue dancing for political leaders; whether male and female and Banda, the vice president nominee, is one of them.

“Because I am an African, we dance as part of our culture and identify. We dance during birth, we dance when we brew beer, we dance when we praise God, we dance when there is death, we dance when we install chiefs. We dance as a form of appreciation and expression of our feelings,” said Banda.

She said dancing is part of who Malawians are. “It does not take away anybody’s dignity. I will dance alone as an African. I have advised my children that when I die, nobody should cry, but celebrate my life, I expect people to dance in celebration of my life. Dancing is part of who we are and we cannot stop that,” said Banda.

It is yet to be seen if men will be forming dance groups for women politicians.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Feb 6 2009 (IPS)

Malawi has taken major strides towards reducing poverty and hunger in the country. Government’s cash transfer scheme has managed to reach many of those usually unable to access grants due to lengthy and complicated bureaucratic processes and assessments.

Beneficiaries of Malawi's cash transfer scheme are nominated by local community leaders based on need. Credit: Mick Yates

Before they started receiving the grant, life was tough for the Kondwerani children. "Sleeping on an empty stomach was not unusual for us. For four years, we had to do with one meal a day or none at all," said Kondwerani.

The teenager wakes up early every morning to collect firewood, fetch water, prepare food and make sure her brothers and sisters are bathed before they go to school.

Before the family qualified for the grant, the siblings’ education was put on hold, because the need to find food had been a daily priority. "We had to go scavenging for food that has been thrown-away in rubbish pits instead of going to school?" Kondwerani said.

But since they became part of the social cash transfer scheme two years ago, the welfare of her family has improved drastically. Kondwerani receives $19 a month, which is an average monthly income in a rural community in Malawi. "I am now able to provide for the whole family, and we are able to afford food," she said. The grant also enabled her to buy goats, chickens and fertiliser to grow maize.

Poverty reduction

Like all beneficiaries of the cash transfer scheme, which was launched in September 2006, Kondwerani’s household was nominated by a local Community Social Protection Committee (CSPC) made up of respected community members, including the chiefs of the area. The CSPC lists families in dire need and forwards those to the district Social Protection Sub-Committee (SPSC), a body of social workers and provincial government officials, which verifies and approves nominations.

CSPCs put forward names of the ultra poor, child-headed households, those unable to work due to disability, illness or old age. The money is disbursed to beneficiaries without any conditions or the need to fill out complicated application forms.

The amount of the monthly grant, which is coordinated through a partnership of the Malawian government, the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) and the National AIDS Commission (NAC), is dependent on household size.

The smallest monthly grant is $4.20 for a one-person household. To encourage school enrolment and retention, an extra $1.30 is disbursed for children enrolled in primary school and another $2.60 for households with children in secondary school.

"It is also an investment in children's health and nutrition and protection of children from exploitation and abuse, such as child labour or early marriages," said UNICEF chief of social policy in Malawi, Mayke Huijbregts.

"Cash transfers have made a positive impact on the well-being of the poorest, and especially children, in the areas of health, nutrition, school enrolment, retention and performance," she explained.

The scheme also helped to reduce child labour from 53 percent to 18 percent in Malawi, enhanced food security and diversity, investments in livestock, housing, hygiene and clothes, Huijbregts further noted.

According to government statistics, 65 percent of Malawi's 13.1 million people live below the poverty line of less than a dollar per day.

More than four million children live in poverty, which is deep, widespread and characterised by low income, low literacy, food insecurity and high rates of child malnutrition, according to UNICEF. Almost half of Malawi’s children under the age of five are stunted due to malnutrition.

To make matters worse, 13 percent of the country's more than seven million children under the age of 18 have lost their parents, mostly to HIV and AIDS. As a result, more than half of children of primary school going age have dropped out because of poverty, hunger and cultural barriers.

Easy access to grants

Faced with such extreme poverty, the Malawian government had to ensure that available grants reach the poor quickly and efficiently. According to the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), a coalition of 100 civil society organisations, the cash transfer programme is well targeted to make a difference to the population’s welfare.

"The scheme works better than the farm input subsidy programme, for example, which is also being implemented by government, where the poor get seed and fertiliser regardless of their ability to farm or not," said MEJN executive director Andrew Kumbatira.

Preliminary survey data on the social cash transfer scheme show that the money is being used wisely by recipients and invested in meeting people’s immediate, basic needs. The grant is spent on soap, food, education materials, healthcare, clothing, shelter, livestock, poultry, seeds and fertiliser. Some families even manage to make small savings.

By the end of 2008, 12,000 households and 40,000 children have benefited from the scheme. Government aims to increase the number of households accessing the scheme to 250,000 by 2015, and the number of children benefiting from it to 700,000.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Jan 23 2009 (IPS)

Zimbabwe – where cholera has claimed more than 2,700 lives so far according to the Red Cross – is not the only southern African country facing increased disease as rains set in across the region. Malawi is also battling a cholera outbreak which has killed 19 people since the onset of the rainy season, an unusually high death toll.

Authorities have set up tents to treat cholera victims in Lilongwe Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda

Apart from the current outbreak in Lilongwe, one other cholera case was treated in the country's commercial capital, Blantyre, two weeks ago, but this was imported from Zimbabwe, according to Malawi's principal secretary for health Chris Kang'ombe.

"Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre treated a Zimbabwean truck driver who had cholera. He recovered and has since returned to Zimbabwe," said Kang'ombe.

There is a lot of cross-border trade and movement between Malawi and neighbouring Zimbabwe and Malawi health authorities have been on alert and intensifying civic education on cholera to ensure that the serious Zimbabwe cholera situation does not spread into the country, according to Kang'ombe.

But cholera is not primarily spread directly from person to person. The country's health experts have attributed the problem to lack of safe water combined with poor sanitation and poor hygiene.

The outbreak has hit Lilongwe, and surrounding communities hardest. Kang'ombe said all the people that have died were resident in Malawi's fastest-growing city which has large populations living in slums with little access to safe water. Cholera is transmitted through contaminated water or food.

"We encounter cholera outbreaks almost every rainy season when people who have little or no access to safe water resort to using untreated water from swamps," Kang'ombe told IPS.

The Banda clan, living on the outskirts of Lilongwe city, has lost two family members to the disease within a period of two weeks. Another member of the family was also infected but has recovered after treatment.

A clan member, Jabu Banda, said his aunt got ill with cholera two weeks ago and was admitted to one of the tents erected in Likuni, one of Lilongwe's high density areas, by the ministry of health specially to care for cholera victims. "She died two days after being taken to the health centre," said Banda.

He said his niece also started showing signs of cholera a week after the death in the family. "We took her to the health centre but she also died a day later," Banda said.

Banda said his cousin who played the role of guardian for the two victims was also diagnosed with cholera last week.

"She has just been discharged from the clinic but she is yet to recover fully. She is very weak," Banda told IPS.

In managing the outbreak, Malawi's Ministry of Health has erected special tents near local hospitals and within areas that have been highly affected by the cholera outbreak.

"The idea is to avoid mixing cholera patients with others admitted to hospitals for other less contagious illnesses," said Kang'ombe.

He said the outbreak would have been quickly contained if people had improved on their hygiene. Kang'ombe said a lot of people in townships and surrounding areas eat fresh foods such as fruits without washing them. Fruits such as mangos, bananas and pineapples are in abundance during the rainy season in Malawi.

"We are providing chlorine to households for them to be able treat their water. We are also stopping communities from preparing food at gatherings such as funerals and to avoid buying cooked food from streets to avoid contamination," he said.

The ministry has also cautioned people who handle corpses of cholera cases to be extra careful. Culturally, most communities in Malawi administer a bath to the dead just before burial.

Meanwhile, there are more fears of cholera outbreaks in other parts of Malawi – health officials are vigilant in the flood-prone areas of the country which include southern districts of Chikwawa and Nsanje, the lowest-lying areas of Malawi, which experience floods annually and where cholera epidemics are most common during the rainy season.

Floods have already affected 2,100 households in 21 villages in Nsanje district and 1,573 other families in Chikwawa district since the beginning of the New Year, according to government statistics from district commissioners' offices.

A task force comprising the Ministry of Health, United Nations Children's Fund – (UNICEF), World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Kingdom's Department For International Development (DFID) is currently working to promote civic education on hygiene and chlorination of water sources in the country to control further cholera outbreaks.

Malawi's rainy season runs from November to May and the country still has five more months to contend with cholera.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Dec 26 2008 (IPS)

Climate change will affect the Zambezi River basin more severely than any other river system in the world, according to Kenneth Msibi, Water Policy and Strategy Expert for the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Increased floods, drought and increased levels of disease threaten lives and livelihoods all along the river’s length.

Adaptation to climate change along the Zambezi is hampered by a lack of resources. Credit: David Gough/IRIN

Coordinator for the Climate Change and Adaptation in Africa project, Miriam Kalanda-Sabola, told IPS that farming communities in Malawi and Tanzania, for instance, have in the past 30 years experienced considerable negative climate change effects in both semi-arid and high rainfall areas.

Throughout the basin, agriculture is mostly rain-fed, and the people of these states are facing declining agricultural productivity which is being linked to worsening poverty and increasing food insecurity.

The semi-arid areas of Tanzania have seen declining crop yields, poor livestock production, and increasing domestic animal diseases. Many communities have abandoned the production of traditional crops. But farmers in areas of high rainfall are also in difficulty.

"The high rainfall areas in Tanzania are facing declining soil fertility, stunted crop growth, destruction of mature crops in the field and stored ones," said Kalanda-Sabola.

In Malawi's semi-arid areas, communities are seeing increasing periods of hunger and loss of property due to floods while droughts have reduced grazing for livestock due to droughts.

Meanwhile, the high rainfall areas are experiencing soil erosion and frequent landslides, increasing incidence of malaria and loss of crops and animals due to floods.

"The most vulnerable victims facing the effects of the changes in climatic conditions are the poor, women, children, elders, people with less education, sick people and communities in areas with poor infrastructures and less social network," said Kalanda-Sabola.

New and increased levels of disease are also having a negative impact on agriculture, according to Professor Moses John Chimbari, Deputy Director at Harry Oppenheimer Okavango Research Centre (HOORC), a research institute at the University of Botswana.

He says droughts and floods due to rising temperatures are creating a conducive environment for diseases such as malaria and meningitis. He said there are already many more episodes of malaria in the riparian states because of the favourable atmosphere for mosquitoes that has already been created due to the climatic changes.

"This has a great impact on agriculture and the economies since people are sick most of the times and they are not being very productive," said Chimbari.

He said most countries in the Zambezi riparian states have little capacity to adapt to high incidence of diseases and that this makes many people even more vulnerable.

He worried that HIV/AIDS is also adding to these stresses.

"We need to reverse the trends that increase vulnerability to climate change through food security. We will actually be the most vulnerable region if we continue to be where we are now," said Chimbari.

The researcher called for states to improve their health facilities and be able to cope with the health hazards being posed by climate change.

The adaptation strategies that are being employed in Malawi include switching to drought-resistant crops like cassava, increased irrigation farming, growing early-maturing hybrid varieties of crops and the use of organic manure.

In Tanzania, farmers are also turning to drought resistant crops such as sunflowers, and employing small scale irrigation, improved social networks such as cooperatives and the use of improved seed varieties.

Kalanda-Sabola approves of all these strategies and further calls for more livestock farming – especially in the high rainfall sites – and timely access to vital and simple information on climate change and variability.

She says farmers in the region are being hampered by resource limitations including lack of enough crop land, lack of accessibility to loans and farm inputs. She underlines the need for a strengthening of capacity for implementation among communities.

"Most farmers are failing to meet transaction costs necessary to acquire adaptation measures as they also have no or little access to external markets," she said.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Dec 2 2008 (IPS)

If the socio-economic development goals of the eight countries that share the Zambezi River basin are to be met, countries along the river should quickly implement plans towards managing water resources in an efficient, effective and sustainable manner.

Better management needed: Manuel Fanso was one of 300,000 Mozambicans displaced by flooding in 2008. Credit: Tomas de Mul/IRIN

The gathering, an annual event of stock-taking and strategising first held in 2005, focuses on managing the resources of the Zambezi basin. This year’s forum was aimed at turning the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Strategy and implementation plan of the Zambezi river basin resources into action.

The IWRM spells out how the eight Zambezi Riparian States – Angola, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe – can share the benefits derived from the water resources of the Zambezi River Basin in a sustainable and equitable manner.

Malawi’s Principal Secretary for irrigation and water development, Andrina Mchiela, alerted the forum to several serious warning signs concerning the water situation in the region. She said that many rivers in the water basin are now running dry before they reach the lakes or seas they previously emptied into. Across the region, water tables are drying up and wetlands are fast disappearing. She said there was need to speed up the process of implementing the IWRM to counter these negative developments.

The IWRM strategy addresses four issues, namely lack of coordinated water resources development, poor environmental management approaches, weak climate change adaptation measures and weak regional cooperation and integration mechanisms.

“There is need for a very careful management of the water resources in the Zambezi Water Basin,” said Mchiela.

Mchiela said there is growing demand for fresh water in the region, which, she said, is currently using 50 percent of all fresh water sources.

“At the current trend, by 2025, we shall be using 75 percent of all the fresh water,” said Mchiela.

Globally, up to one billion people lack clean water, two billion have no proper sanitation and seven billion will be faced with severe water shortages by 2015, according to Mchiela. She said the IWRM should be used to improve the situation, at least in the region.

“We need in-basin people that are dedicated towards finding solutions to these challenges,” said Mchiela.

Another problem facing the Zambezi Basin is the impact of climate change. According to Kenneth Msibi, Water Policy and Strategy Expert for the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Zambezi is the worst-affected basin in the world.

Frequent floods and intense droughts are expected to become even more frequent occurrences. In 2007 alone, Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe all experienced intense flooding which affected more than half a million people.

Msibi said that a large part of the population of six of the eight states along the Zambezi live below the poverty line and water management has a role to play in economic and social development for the region.

“The challenge is to use water as a catalyst for development,” said Msibi. “We now need to see tangible actions if the region has to achieve poverty reduction and economic prosperity,” said Msibi.

He said water, food and energy security can be realised from the Zambezi water basin, explaining that it is the biggest river basin in SADC with abundant water resources and good soils that need to be effectively utilised.

“There is so much potential in this water basin,” said Msibi.

The Zambezi basin is home to over 40 million people, according to the 2007 IWRM Forum Report. The basin is reported to be rich in human, social, political, economic, natural and ecological diversity and has high potential for agriculture, fisheries, forestry, wildlife and hydroelectric power generation.

David Harrison, Senior Advisor and Consultant for Global Freshwater Team, called on the Zambezi water basin riparian states to learn from the effective management currently taking place on China’s Yangtze River basin. The Yangtze is the world’s third longest river.

Harrison cited flood control initiatives, constructing and operating of dams in ways that reduce impacts on the river and its aquatic populations as some of the projects that should be encouraged in the Zambezi water basin.

The formulation of the IWRM followed the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) agreement signed by the eight riparian states in July 2004. The countries indicated that they recognized the significance of the Zambezi watercourse as a major water resource in the region and the need to conserve, protect and sustainably utilise the resources of the basin. The states also committed themselves to ensure equitable and reasonable utilization and efficient management and sustainable development of the water basin resources.

The forum came up with resolutions to improve water reservoir management for improved food security and for the rehabilitation, management and monitoring of environmental-vulnerable areas in the basin.

The forum was attended by delegates from government ministries for environment, water, justice, finance, fisheries, forestry, agriculture and energy, non-governmental organisations working in environment and water sectors, traditional leaders who represented their communities, universities and research institutions, parliamentarians, private sector, and local government leaders.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Malawi, Nov 24 2008 (IPS)

Malawi’s primary elections are getting ugly for women candidates. Shoving, derogatory songs and being pelted with stones are just some of the intimidating tactics aimed at discouraging women from contesting the primary elections that will select candidates for the parliamentary polls in May 2009.

Lilian Patel: Male politicians fail to protect women. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

"I can’t take it anymore," Nya Mkandawire told IPS. "I have faced different kinds of intimidation from fellow contenders, who are all men."

Angry crowds sang demeaning songs and shoved her around at rallies. "They have been destroying my campaign materials, including flags and posters, in the night to discourage me from contesting," she added.

The last straw came when DPP committee members and primary delegates demanded money.

"They said I can only win the elections after I pay them some money and I didn’t find this proper," she told IPS.

The culture of handouts is common here during elections. Politicians distribute money, food and blankets to their constituents, claiming it is their way of sharing wealth.

Gender activist Veronica Njikho says the practice of freebies disadvantages women politicians because men already have an established financial capacity that women do not.

"Only 23 percent of women have an equal say as their partners in economic matters at home and they do not have the same financial muscle as their male counterparts when it comes to politics," Njikho said.

Women drop out

Njikho is a champion of the 50/50 Campaign, led by government and 42 civil society groups, to boost women’s participation in politics and decision-making positions.

The Campaign has condemned the intimidation and harassment of women candidates. Violence is marring some rallies for men candidates as well.

"There is a lot of political violence being reported from all corners of Malawi and this is discouraging a lot of women from participating in the elections," said Njikho.

The gender expert explained that most women do not want to be associated with or be victims of abuse: "Naturally, women are not violent people."

An unprecedented 425 women wanted to run for parliament at the onset of the 50/50 Campaign but only 200 persevered. "The rest dropped from the race mainly due to the harassment and intimidation," Njikho told IPS.

She fears that the growing reports of intimidation during the primaries will prompt more women to abandon politics.

The Campaign seeks to see women win at least half of the 193 seats in the national assembly, in keeping with the Southern African Development Community Protocol on Gender, signed in August, which mandates a 50 percent representation of women in government by 2015.

Malawi scores below the Sub-Saharan average of female representation in parliament, with women accounting for 14 per cent of its national assembly.

The biggest challenge for the Campaign, said Njikho, is the uneven political playing field. Men hold the top political positions, they support their fellow men and resist women candidates.

Leaders fail women

Lilian Patel, an MP and chair of the Malawi Parliamentary Women Caucus, blamed party leaders for these problems. Just like the DPP, the other main political parties – the United Democratic Front (UDF) and the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) – are headed by men.

"All political parties in the country have failed to put up deliberate efforts to ensure that women are propped up," said Patel, a UDF member.

On Nov. 13, a primary election in the lake district of Nkhatabay ended with a stampede, when DPP supporters started throwing stones after a dispute over eligible voters. Three women were contesting these primaries.

Meanwhile, Nya Mkandawire is not giving up on politics. She is considering running as an independent candidate or joining another party.

To discourage this choice, the DPP came up with a trick, she explained. DPP candidates collecting the nomination forms for the primaries had to sign a declaration that, in the event of losing, they would support the winners, and not run as independents or join other parties.

"The declaration would have been fair if the elections were fair but, in this case, we have to look for other alternatives if we have to stay in politics," said Nya Mkandawire.

Dodging stones and insults is not an alternative she will consider. Respect and safety for all women candidates, that is what she wants.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Nov 21 2008 (IPS)

Civil society organisations in Malawi are keen on the newly introduced Governance and Transparency Fund (GTF) which, they hope, will provide people with more power to ensure that there is proper governance and transparency in the country.

Up to 65 percent of Malawi's 13.1 million people live below the poverty line of less than a dollar per day, according to Malawi government statistics.

Malawi's transparency and accountability record is also not very good – the country is ranked number 115 out of 180 countries in the 2008 Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).

A new programme – funded by the 130 million pound Governance and Transparency Fund (GTF) of the Department for International Development (DFID), the arm of the UK Government that manages Britain's aid to poor countries – designed to help citizens hold their governments to account may help.

The "Strengthening Citizen Demand for Good Governance Through Evidence Based Approaches" programme – which will be implemented in various African countries – was launched in Malawi's capital on Nov. 19, 2008.

Overseas Development Institute (ODI) director Dr Fletcher Tembo said at the launch of the project that there is need to strengthen the country's budding democracy through participatory governance and social accountability.

Tembo explained that the programme is about facilitating citizen's voices through the engagement of civil society, independent media, elected representative and other non-state actors.

He said following the launch of the programme, a national coordinating organisation will be appointed to provide grants to the media, parliament and civil society organisations in their pursuit to intensify governance and transparency issues.

"The whole emphasis of the fund hinges on citizenry power. The programme would want to enable the citizens meet their aspirations better at the same time holding the government accountable," he said.

The Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), a coalition of 100 civil society organizations, including NGOs, community based organisations, the media, trade unions and the academia, is excited about the GTF. MEJN works on social and economic governance.

MEJN executive director Andrew Kumbatira lauded the launch of the programme saying it would strengthen accountability.

"We need to progress as a country and we can only do that if there is good governance and if government is accountable on its spending," said Kumbatira. "The country's citizens therefore have a great role in monitoring government and this will be made possible with the fund," said Kumbatira.

He said there are already existing programmes in the country where citizens participate in holding government and political officials accountable but that these are minimal.

Kumbatira cited the Umunthu (human-ness in Chichewa) Initiative, where constituents are able to summon their member of parliament to explain how he has been representing them in the national assembly, as one of the programs where citizen participation is already working.

"Of course the Umunthu initiative is only happening in two of the country's 27 districts and the GTF will help in expanding such kind of program to all the districts," Kumbatira told IPS.

He also mentioned Budget Monitoring as another already-existing programme with citizen participation. This is implemented by MEJN and communities at local level hold local authorities in their assemblies accountable on public funds.

"Even the Budget Monitoring has lots of gaps as it is done in very few areas due to lack of resources," said Kumbatira.

Kumbatira also said with the GTF, citizens will be able to prevent legislators from misusing public funds the way they did last year when the passing of the Malawi national budget for 2007/2008 was held to ransom by a political impasse between the ruling and opposition parties in Parliament.

The delays in passing the budget affected the progress of development projects and the provision of essential services such as health and education as government could not procure enough supplies without the national budget.

The country's main opposition parties, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP) and the United Democratic Front (UDF), wanted the Speaker of the House to declare vacant the seats of parliamentarians who had crossed the floor to join President Bingu wa Mutharika's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).

The opposition parties were citing Section 65 of the Constitution, which stops legislators from leaving the parties that put them into power. Mutharika himself won the presidency under the UDF but dumped it after becoming president and went on to form the Democratic People's Party.

The budget which was supposed to be passed on June 2007 was not passed until September and Mutharika told people in a national radio broadcast that up to $2.2 million was wasted by Parliamentarians during the squabble which yielded no results. The parliamentarians who crossed the floor still have their seats in the national assembly.

"We want to see an end to such inconsiderate conduct by parliamentarians and we will use the GTF to work with citizens to ensure that transparency and accountability is the order of the day," Kumbatira told IPS.

*The Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Britain's leading independent think-tank on development and humanitarian issues, is driving the implementation of the "Strengthening Citizen Demand for Good Governance Through Evidence Based Approaches" in partnership with the Inter Press Service (IPS) Africa and CIVICUS.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Oct 21 2008 (IPS)

Women suffering from obstetric fistula in Malawi received free medical care to reverse their condition during the country’s Fistula Week.

Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

Lausi Adamu, from Makanjira in Malawi’s lake district of Mangochi, who does not know her exact age, has suffered from fistula for the last 25 years. Her affliction came to an end last week, when she received an operation free of charge to stop her ailment.

Adamu told IPS reporter Pilirani Semu-Banda about her life with the disease as she recuperated in hospital after the operation.

IPS: How did you develop fistula? Lausi Adamu: It was 25 years ago, when I was in labour for three days while giving birth to my first and only child at home.

I received no medical care throughout pregnancy, and it was only my mother who was with me during delivery. There was no midwife or doctor available. It was a very long and painful labour and the baby was stillborn when he eventually came out.

I have been unable to control the leakage of both urine and faeces from my body ever since and I haven’t had the courage to have another child.

IPS: Why did you not receive medical care during pregnancy and delivery? LA: It takes four hours to walk from my village to the nearest hospital, and no vehicle goes into my area because the road is in a very bad condition. Most births therefore happen at home, and women rely on their mothers, their mother-in-laws or traditional birth attendants to help them during labour.

The culture in my area also demands that the first baby has to be delivered at home for elders to ensure that the husband is indeed responsible for the pregnancy. There is a belief that most women have more than one relationship after they just got married -– so the women who help at birth ask the woman in labour to mention the (name of the) real father of the baby. The belief is that if any complications develop during the process of giving birth the woman has been unfaithful.

IPS: What did you know about fistula before you developed the condition? LA: I thought I was bewitched, but everyone else in my community thought I had been unfaithful to my husband. It was a very strange affliction. My mother took me to five different traditional healers who told me that the condition was incurable and that I should accept to live with it for the rest of my life.

However, there have been many such cases in my area over the years, and most of the women have been treated by community members the same way as me (with contempt).

Government and UNFPA staff have in the past year been coming to my area, and they have been carrying out community meetings where they are telling us that the condition is medical and that it is repairable.

I decided to come to the hospital to see if indeed I can be helped after one of the women from my community, who had a similar condition, came back cured after visiting the hospital.

IPS: How has fistula affected your life? LA: It has been a terrible nightmare. My husband left me two months after I developed fistula and my mother died soon thereafter. All of my relatives, including my own brothers and sisters, deserted me.

I have been living a very lonesome life since no one wanted to be close to me because of the appalling smell that emanated from my body at all times. I could never attend any social gatherings within my community, not even funerals of my own relatives.

I have been selling mats, which I weave, to make a living, but I never got close to my customers even then. I leave the mats by the roadside and speak to them from a distance about the price.

IPS: Do you still believe fistula is caused by witchcraft? LA: Not any more. After listening to the community meetings being carried out by UNFPA and government and after my visit to the hospital, I believe that fistula occurs due to prolonged and hindered labour during which the baby's head puts pressure on the bladder and rectum, thereby causing holes. This causes the woman to leak urine or faeces or both uncontrollably.

Looking back 25 years, I do agree that this is what really happened.

IPS: Are many members of your community now changing their perceptions about fistula due to the meetings? LA: It is very difficult to change people’s perceptions because most of us have not been to school. Our culture is strong and it’s not easy to sway people away from what they have believed in for a long time.

Of course, there are quite a number of us that have now come to accept how fistula occurs, but it will take a lot of sensitisation before most people start to believe that fistula is indeed a medical condition.

IPS: Now that women with fistula are able to access medical treatment, what other challenges are they facing? LA: The medical personnel carrying out the repairs are men and because my community is very traditional and conservative, most women are not willing to be treated by men, especially since the condition has to do with private parts.

Given a choice, I would have opted to be operated on by a woman. However, we are being told that it is only men that are qualified to carry out fistula repairs, so we don’t have a choice.

IPS: Will you play a role in educating people in your community about fistula? LA: I have had fistula for a very long time and I have experienced unimaginable torture from this condition -– I know the terrible feelings that women with fistula have to live with.

When I go back home, I will encourage women with fistula to go and seek medical help. I will also be advocating for hospital deliveries and try to change people’s thinking. The best way to avoid fistula is to encourage pregnant women to go for antenatal care and to have their babies delivered in hospital.

IPS: Do you think that organisations working to combat fistula are doing enough? LA: They’re trying their best. But apart from aid organisations we need government to help us in the reduction of poverty as well because I now understand that fistula happens mostly among poor people.

Communities like where I come from do not have easy access to proper health care and good roads because they are mostly poor. We also need education so that we can understand issues and to get rid of harmful traditional beliefs.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Oct 18 2008 (IPS)

The reigning Miss Malawi, Peth Msiska, has hit the campaign trail, not seeking another crown but to be voted into Parliament in her country’s general elections in May 2009.

Msiska says her first priority will be to bring water to her rural constituency. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda

Trading high heels for flat shoes, the beauty queen with a degree in accountancy has swapped fashion and charity events in Blantyre for rallies along dusty roads in her home area of Chileka, in the south of the country.

"I decided to join politics to make a difference in the lives of people, especially those in the rural areas," Msiska told IPS.

Hers is no easy task. Up to 70 percent of Malawi’s population of 14 million is rural, more than half live in poverty and 22 per cent live in extreme poverty, according to the United Nations.

For the people of Chileka, Msiska wants to bring boreholes and taps closer. She knows from her childhood that local women and girls walk up to 10 kilometres to fetch clean water.

Second in her to-do list is bringing electricity. Ironically, Chileka is close to a hydro-electrical power station on the Shire River, Malawi’s longest watercourse, but people here use paraffin lamps and candles.

"Electricity is generated right on their door-steps but they don’t have access to it," she fires. "And it’s unacceptable to see women travelling long distances in search of clean water."

Orphanages and schools are another priority. As Miss Malawi, Msiska fundraised for charities dealing with orphans and the elderly. There are one million orphans in Malawi, according to United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF).

Sharon Gonsalves-Chalira, a 25-year-old secondary school teacher from Chileka, is a fan.

"She is an inspiration not only to young women like me but to the whole community here," she told IPS. "Peth will win the elections and I am sure she will deliver all that she’s promising in her campaign speeches."

Msiska is a powerful motivational speaker, urging young women to see themselves just as capable as men. Just like she does: "I am aware that some people might not take me seriously because I am young but politics it is not about age. I am a very determined woman, principled, confident and qualified to be a member of parliament."

Msiska, who is single, has the backing of her family, and derives strength from praying at the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian.

Walk the talk

Malawian women do not often venture into politics because of harassment, intimidation and cultural perceptions that bind them to domesticity, says Emma Kaliya, of the Gender Coordination Network (GCN).

Malawi scores below the sub-Saharan Africa average of female representation in government. Women account for 14 percent in Parliament, 16 percent in the executive arm of government, and 12 per cent in the judiciary.

In the world ranking of women legislators by the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union, Malawi scored 87 among some 140 countries.

Kaliya says the small number of women in parliament hampers discussions on issues such as maternal deaths and property grabbing from widows.

"We need more women in parliament so that women issues are addressed effectively," said Kaliya.

There is now new hope for improvement. Msiska, like all 425 women parliamentary candidates, has the backing of the 50/50 Campaign, a national effort of government and 42 civil society groups to boost women’s participation in politics and decision-making positions.

The Campaign wants at least half of the 193 parliamentary seats to go to women. It is inspired by the Southern African Development Community target agreed in August by member states, including Malawi, to have a 50 percent representation of women in government by 2015.

To get there, the Campaign is putting its money where its mouth is. All women candidates will be trained in advocacy, lobbying and campaigning, and get $700 as a campaign start-up in their constituencies.

Msiska would not be Malawi’s youngest Member of Parliament. Angela Zachepa was voted into office in 2004 when she was just 22 years old. But Misiska might just be the most glamorous.

Miss Malawi is further inspired by the vice-presidential candidate for the Republican party in the United States, Governor Sarah Palin, who won the third place in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant.

Unlike Palin, who has received a lot of negative coverage in the American press, Msiska has been portrayed positively in the Malawi media.

"It’s high time that people realised that beauty queens can make great leaders," Msiska told IPS.

Excerpt:

Through hard work and resilience, Malawian entrepreneur Mary Phombeya has developed her once small and struggling business outfit into a fully fledged company. She imports fashionable clothes – for women, children and men – from Dubai, Thailand and Hong Kong which she sells locally.

Mary Phombeya's import business is booming. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

Initiated in April 2006 with a measly 3,000 dollars, the clothing business has given her a five-bedroom house in one of the affluent areas in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. She is also able to send her two children and three other relatives to the country’s distinguished schools from the profits she makes.

‘‘I was so reliant on my husband before I started my business. But I am now very independent as I have a daily cash flow from the sales,’’ Phombeya says proudly. She makes an average profit of 5,000 dollars per month and provides employment to two women.

The business is different from when she kick-started it two years ago. She did not even have a business plan. ‘‘I had no real vision at all when I started. I just decided to accompany somebody to Hong Kong who had been selling clothes to me. I brought back whatever I could lay my hands on but most of the clothes did not sell because I had only bought what I’d liked,’’ she explains.

Phombeya learnt her lesson from that incident and decided to take her trade to greater heights. She went around to offices, asking potentials clients what their desired piece of clothing would be.

‘‘I only got things right when I decided to acquaint myself with the needs of my customers. I always make sure that I know exactly what I will sell to what type of buyer,’’ says Phombeya, as she bustles around her boutique, hanging up pieces of clothing from the consignment she has just brought back from Thailand.

It is her dedication to her customers that has supported Phombeya’s business, Flora Kabati, one of her most reliable clients, tells IPS.

‘‘She has the interest of her customers at heart. She knows what my choices of clothing are and she does not go wrong. She has supplied me with office wear, casual wear and even clothes for special events like a wedding or a party,’’ enthused Kabati.

Phombeya makes the most of every chance to network with fellow traders. She is always in the company of colleagues when she travels abroad to procure clothing.

‘‘You want to feel safe when you are walking around a strange city. We walk long distances scouting for affordable goods. Sometimes we cover a distance of up to 20 kilometres,’’ says Phombeya.

It only takes two days to gather enough merchandise for sale but that she spends four days flying to and from Malawi. ‘‘It is very tiring and challenging. One needs a lot of patience and determination to do this.’’

There are a number of sacrifices that Phombeya has to make in her quest for an income. She throws the need for privacy to the wind during her travels as she usually shares a hotel room with four other traders. This helps them save money.

She also has to be tough and stop herself from being enticed to buy goods that she might want for herself and her family while shopping for her customers.

‘‘This business demands a lot of discipline and self-control. Sometimes I get really fascinated by all sorts of good things but I ensure that I don’t get lured into buying those things,’’ says the merchant. Once she went to Dubai and ended up shopping for her own house, thus losing business opportunities.

A major challenge facing Phombeya’s trade is the amount of duty she has to pay on importing merchandise into the country. ‘‘The taxes are so high. Sometimes the amount of money I pay in taxes on an item of clothing is higher than the amount of money I paid for the garment,’’ worries Phombeya.

She has to sell such clothing at a higher-than-usual price if she is to realise profits.

The business woman also has to contend with high transportation costs when flying the goods into the country. She pays seven dollars for every kilogramme of luggage.

Most of Phombeya’s customers buy the clothes on credit. They pay her in instalments. This also poses a challenge because not all her customers honour their debts. ‘‘Some people get the clothes and change their telephone numbers while others move houses. It’s very difficult to trace such people and I lose out.’’

Others get aggressive when she reminds them to pay and hurl insults at her.

Phombeya, however, is not being slowed down by the challenges she encounters. She plans to spread out into more business ventures in the coming year and is eyeing the distribution industry.

‘‘I already have plans in place to be a distributor of soft drinks and mobile phone credit. I am sure I will make it and I will be a much bigger trader than now,’’ Phombeya confidently adds.

She holds a Master’s of Science Degree in Agricultural Economics which, she says, has also helped her in being resourceful.

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Oct 14 2008 (IPS)

A group of 138 unhappy and mostly destitute women from Malawi’s lake district of Mangochi have something to look forward to this week: They will have a chance to restore their dignity and pride by accessing a medical service usually not available to them.

Little medical care is available to pregnant women in Malawi, raising rates of maternal mortality and other complications. Credit: IRIN

According to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reproductive health officer, Dorothy Lazaro, obstetric fistula occurs during the process of giving birth and is caused by extended pressure of the child’s head against the soft tissue in the mother’s pelvis.

The tissue eventually dies from the lack of blood supply, and a hole develops between either the rectum and vagina or between the bladder and vagina. As a result, women lose control of the flow of urine and sometimes faeces.

UNFPA and Malawi’s Ministry of Health have jointly organised a "Fistula Week" where women with this condition will undergo operations and receive free medical services to reverse the condition.

Apart from medical complications, women suffering from obstetric fistula have to face numerous social obstacles. They are outcasts in their communities because their husbands abandon them when they fall ill. In addition, community members do not want to get close to them because of the smell that emanates from their bodies due to the continuous flow of excreta.

Malawi has no official statistics on how many women are afflicted with fistula but government, with UNFPA’s assistance, is currently carrying out a study to determine the scale of the problem.

Lazaro says that there is such a large number of fistula patients in Mangochi because early marriages abound in the district, which result in young women giving birth before their bodies are ready to endure the strains of pregnancy and birth.

She explains that young women often go through a prolonged labour process that causes the soft tissues between the pelvis to die, which then creates holes between the bladder and/or the rectum and the vagina. "We have come across girls as young as 13 giving birth, and this age group usually risks developing fistula," says Lazaro.

She also says that most women in Mangochi give birth at home with no medical care or follow up examinations.

The head of the national health ministry’s Reproductive Health Unit (RHU), Dr. Chisale Mhango, says Malawi lacks sufficient infrastructure for maternal care – another contributing factor to fistula. The lack of health services is also responsible for the country’s high maternal mortality rate -– with 807 deaths per 100,000 live births -– the second-highest on the continent after war-torn Sierra Leone.

"It’s very difficult for us to cope with maternity cases because of the lack of medical personnel that the country continues to face," says Mhango.

The country’s efforts to attain Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number five, which aims to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters by 2015, are being severely hampered by these shortcomings.

There is only one doctor and four clinical officers in the whole of Malawi who are qualified to carry out fistula repairs, according to Lazaro. More than 100 registered nurses are reported to be leaving the country each year for the developed world in search of higher-paying jobs. Malawi’s Ministry of Health statistics indicate that one doctor takes care of up to 64,000 patients.

But this week, UNFPA has brought into the country two surgical specialists from Holland and Kenya to provide support to the existing local medical personnel in treating the women during fistula week.

"The specialists will also provide a refresher course on fistula repair to our local medical personnel," says Lazaro. She, however, worries that the efforts of fistula week might be hampered by a lack of bed space available in the health care facilities in Mangochi to treat the 138 women.

"The women have to be monitored for two weeks after the operation and it may not be feasible for the health facilities to have so many women hospitalised for such a long time," says Lazaro.

As a long-term plan developed locally to prevent fistula, UNFPA in Malawi is recommending fistula prevention programmes to be linked with education systems to ensure that girls remain in school for a longer time. The UN agency also recommends that youth-friendly health services be made widely available to prevent early pregnancies.

Malawi is not the only country faced with high maternal mortality rates. Globally, 99 percent of maternal deaths occur in the developing world and half of these take place in Africa, according to a joint statement released by UNFPA, World Bank, UNICEF and World Health Organisation in late September.

The agencies say the MDG goal on maternal mortality is showing the least progress compared to the other seven MDG goals, which aim to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empowerment of women, reduce child mortality, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and ensure environmental sustainability and develop a global partnership for development.

"Every minute a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth in the world," says the statement.

The agencies pledged to enhance support to countries with the highest maternal mortality during the next five years and will work with governments and civil society to strengthen national capacity by conducting needs assessments and ensuring that health plans are MDG-driven.

The UN agencies have also promised to address the urgent need for skilled health workers, particularly midwives, reduce financial barriers to access health facilities, especially for the poorest, tackle the root causes of maternal mortality and morbidity which include gender inequality low access to education, especially for girls, child marriage and adolescent pregnancy.

Malawi is hoping to be one of the countries to benefit from this new pledge to scale up efforts to eliminate fistula and maternal deaths, says Lazaro.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Sep 12 2008 (IPS)

Wyson Chandanga, a small-holder Malawian farmer from the northern district of Mzimba, does not care if the country receives enough rain this year. He is also not concerned on whether the rains come on time or not.

Irrigation has greatly increased food production by farmers like Masuzgo Jere. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

However, Chandanga says adverse weather, including erratic rains, experienced in the country in recent years, has persuaded him to find ways to reduce his dependence on rainfall.

Malawi has recently experienced three major episodes of drought; one in 1991, another in 2000 and the most recent happened in 2005. The country has also faced major flooding in some parts of the country – last year, half of Malawi’s 28 districts were hit by heavy flooding and most crops were swept away.

Looking dirty and tired but content after finishing a day’s work cultivating his plot of land, Chandanga declares that he will be a more successful farmer now that he no longer cares for the rains.

"I have now ventured into irrigation farming and I grow maize twice a year even in the dry season. I could only produce the staple food once in a year when I practiced rain-fed agriculture and the yield was not enough for my family," says the farmer.

Chandanga is one of the 29,000 farmers being assisted by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to intensify farm production by developing small-scale irrigation systems and water harvesting schemes in Malawi’s northern region.

The farmers are being trained to improve food security, diversify sources of household income, prevent waterborne diseases in water points and pit latrines, improve their dietary intake and conserve natural resources, according to FAO communications officer Muwuso Chawinga.

"Up to 90 percent of Malawi’s agriculture is rain-fed but we need to diversify into more irrigation farming practices if we have to attain food security for the country," says Chawinga.

Seven out of 10 households in Malawi typically run out of food before the harvesting season, mainly because of drought and floods, according to Chawinga. "It is therefore important that the country should now be maximising on all the seasons and grow their crops even in the dry season and avoid the drought or flooding which may destroy their crops," says Chawinga.

The irrigation programme, which only started in January this year, is already showing signs of having promoted crop diversification in a country that is highly reliant on maize as a staple food. Chandanga, for example, is now also cultivating potatoes, beans and rice to supplement the maize that he has been growing.

Masuzgo Jere, who is also cultivating on a small piece of irrigated land, says she has already harvested enough maize this year to feed her family of five; most farmers are yet to even plant a first crop as they await the rains. She expects to bring in two more crops before April next year, which is when the country harvests maize from the rain-fed agricultural system.

"I not only manage to feed my family, I also sell the surplus food I grow. My family is now regarded as well-off by members of my community," says Jere.

The farmers involved in the irrigation project are provided with treadle pumps and water pipes which they use to pump water through canals from dams, rivers and streams closest to them.

Apart from irrigation, the farmers are being taught skills in water management, development of agro-business, promotion of afforestation and natural resource conservation.

"Our children are not left behind in this since we are also developing garden-based learning centres in primary schools. This is forming part of the agriculture lessons and it will ensure sustainability of the project since the kids will grow with the knowledge on the importance of irrigation farming," says Jere.

The irrigation programme was kick-started following a Poverty Rural Assessment (PRA) exercise which FAO carried out in May 2007. The assessment highlighted low crop yield and low income levels among rural households – the findings were mostly attributed to lack of irrigation opportunities, erratic rainfall and drought.

Malawi is only irrigating 72,000 of 400,000 hectares of irrigable land, according to the government. However the country’s president Bingu wa Mutharika, who is also Minister of Agriculture, told reporters at an August press conference that government is creating a "green belt" along Lake Malawi, which will entail the creation of irrigation schemes along the lake. Lake Malawi is a fresh water lake – the ninth largest lake in the world, it extends the length of the country.

Small-holder farmers will be assisted by government to establish irrigation schemes along the lake. In Malawi’s 2008/2009 national budget, the allocation to the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development has been increased by 50 percent to $55 million.

"The funds will be used in the ministry’s development programme, considered to be crucial for the attainment of food security. This year, (the programme) is expected to construct some 16 earth dams in addition to 20 that have been constructed so far," said the country’s Minister of Finance Goodall Gondwe when he presented the budget statement.

The Ministry of Agriculture has since indicated that the country is expected to produce up to 300,000 tonnes of maize from irrigation by November. The country usually receives its first rains between November and December.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Aug 12 2008 (IPS)

Malawi is on the prowl to extend its trade connections to different corners of the world, west and east. The small southern African country is hoping foreign investment will help it to become a producer and exporter rather than a consumer and importer economy, as is presently the case.

Malawian Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

‘‘The Malawi economy is as good as any economy you would want to invest in. We have achieved a lot. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) cannot believe what we have achieved in just four years. We have managed to stabilise the economy,’’ Malawi’s finance minister, Goodall Gondwe, told the CBC.

The CBC and the Malawi government agreed on July 18 that the council will assist in wooing investors for the country’s industries of mining, tourism, information technology, telecommunications, agriculture and agro-processing, transportation, energy and banking.

The CBC was founded by the Commonwealth’s heads of state at a meeting in 1997 in order to use the network connecting Britain and its former colonies to spur investment and trade.

The new deal comes on the heels of another trade venture which the small southern African country has cultivated with the emerging trade giant, China. Just in May this year Malawi signed a memorandum of understanding with the Asian state, aimed at promoting bilateral trade relations between the two countries.

Another three trade missions are expected this year – from Japan, the United States and India.

A total of 25 major project proposals were presented to the CBC by Malawian business people, with bankable projects worth 10 million dollars and above.

The council will facilitate investment of 20 million dollars by a team of financiers from the developed world for an upmarket international conference facility.

This is aimed at attracting international conferences to the country, head of the CBC team that visited Malawi, Sanmit Ahuja, told government and private sector leaders who met his delegation.

‘‘There is a lack of conference facilities in the country. We believe that if we invest in a conference centre, Malawi will be able to host international conferences and in turn attract more tourists into the country,’’ said Ahuja.

The CBC and the Malawi government, through the ministry of trade, have since agreed on an action plan which will ensure that the country sustains momentum based on its economic fundamentals.

Through a communiqué signed by Malawi and CBC, the country is expected to promote public-private partnerships for the provision of economic infrastructure and to increase productivity in the agricultural sector to ensure food security.

It is also expected to build on existing economic advantages, such as tourism and information communication and technology, as a way of broadening its economic base.

The CBC, on its part, promised to facilitate the availability of geological surveys to develop and exploit Malawi’s mineral resources and attract investors to transportation, energy and health.

The council also pledged to commit itself to creating a follow-up mechanism on the investment pledges that were made during the visit.

Gondwe told the CBC that Malawi is courting investors to help build the country’s private sector which, he said, is the engine of economic growth.

Gondwe also assured the CBC delegation that the country’s markets are up to standard and that government will continue to step up the trade environment and improve security on investments.

He explained to the CBC team that Malawi’s interest rates are down from around 35 percent in 2004 to about 15 percent now and that the inflation rate has dropped from 17.5 percent to 7.9 percent during the same period.

‘‘Government’s target is to cut the inflation rate to about 6.5 percent by the end of the year, to make the economy even more stable,’’ Gondwe promised CBC.

The industry and trade minister, Henry Mussa, has since indicated that Malawi is arranging more trade missions this year. He said the country is now targeting the United States, India and Japan.

‘‘We expect to start seeing the real fruits of improved trade and investment in three or four years to come. In three to four years’ time, real investment will take place in the country,’’ Mussa argued.

CBC works to provide leadership for the improvement of international trade and investment flows, to create new business opportunities and to promote good governance and corporate social responsibility. It seeks to reduce the digital divide and to integrate developing countries into the global market.

The visit by CBC to Malawi followed a Malawi Investment Forum which was held in London in April this year. The forum is reported to have generated a lot of interest in investing in Malawi.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Jun 27 2008 (IPS)

Gladys Mawera's face is contorted with pain -– both she and her newborn baby survived a complicated birth three days ago – but she has not been able to take the painkillers and antibiotics prescribed to her by the medical personnel at the Chiradzulu District Hospital in southern Malawi. The hospital has been without water for five days.

Water shortages have crippled a state of the art hospital in Chiradzulu. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

Chiradzulu hospital is one of the country's model hospitals. The medical facility was built with around $25 million funding from the European Union and boasts of a modern operating theatre, state-of-the art laboratory where sophisticated blood tests can be carried out, including monitoring the viral load in AIDS patients.

The 350-bed hospital provides some of the best HIV/AIDS treatment and care in Malawi with the help of international medical and humanitarian aid organization, Médécins Sans Frontières. These modern technological services are not easily found in most of Malawi's poor health facilities.

"We get people coming here from different parts of Malawi despite the fact that this is not a referral hospital; they mostly come because of the good HIV/AIDS services that we offer," says Chiradzulu hospital's deputy director Kennedy Kandaya.

But the hospital, which serves a catchment area of 300,000 people, has one intractable problem. Since opening its doors in June 2005, the hospital's water supply has been erratic. Kandaya says the scarcity of water at the hospital is this year reaching record levels with the medical facility going without pipe-borne water for up to a week at a time.

When the water is cut off, patients and medical staff alike are lucky to find so much as a cup of water to drink. Medical personnel at Chiradzulu cannot carry out theatre routines such as scrubbing or sterilising of equipment before and after an operation. The hospital has suspended major theatre operations and is now referring patients who must be operated on to other health facilities.

X-ray services are also suspended because of the water problems. The 17 staff houses located within the hospital compound have had no water supply for over a month.

"Both doctors and nurses here are having to go to work without taking a bath," says Kandaya.

The hospital is in a situation where it is running out of linen because everything has gotten dirty, according to the sister-in-charge of the hospital's labour ward Agnes Mhango.

"It's very sad to see women and children shivering and catching cold right within the hospital because we can't provide them with blankets," worries Mhango. Laundry is being done at another hospital, 60 kilometres away; the hospital is running up unbudgeted costs to transport materials and equipment to and fro.

Stealing out for water under cover of darkness

The hospital is encouraging the presence of guardians for patients – usually a relative who is able to assist – to help the hospital in fetching water for patients from nearby boreholes meant for communities that live in area surrounding the health facility.

Mhango says in most cases, the guardians have to wait until night falls to use the community boreholes. "The real beneficiaries pay for the maintenance of the boreholes and they're not happy to see strangers drawing water from their facilities. The people from the hospital therefore have to wait until the owners of the boreholes are sleeping to collect water for the patients," says Mhango.

She says this is dangerous as the guardians face the threat of slipping and falling in the dark and of being bitten by snakes and dogs.

Mawera, however, does not have a guardian since her mother is dead. Women in Malawi are traditionally take responsibility to provide water for their families; there is no other woman who can fetch water for her as she recuperates in her smelly hospital bed.

"I am just praying that the water should come back soon so that I and my baby can wash up," says Mawera.

Poor planning at the root of the problem

The local authority blames the erratic water supply on the location of the hospital. The hospital was built at a place that is higher than the water reservoir for the area, according to the Director of Planning and Development for Chiradzulu district, Emmanuel Bulukutu. He admits that the planning department erred when it opted to use a reservoir that was there before the hospital.

"Ideally, we should have constructed a new reservoir to cater for the hospital," says Bulukutu.

He said there is need to upgrade the whole water system in the district to improve the pumping of water from the reservoir. Bulukutu says there is a proposal to construct a new dam on a higher ground which will be used as the hospital's new reservoir to satisfy the water demand. But as funds have not yet been set aside for this project, this is far from an immediate solution.

Meanwhile the EU has promised the construction of a borehole within the hospital premises as a short term solution to the water problems.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, May 26 2008 (IPS)

China continues to grow its presence in Africa, having just roped in the small southern African country of Malawi as another one of many trading partners on the continent. But some Malawians have adopted a cautious attitude towards their government’s new ally.

A local non-governmental organisation (NGO) is keeping an eye on the developing bilateral relationship, citing concerns about China’s importation of its own labour and the dumping of cheap goods in other African states.

The National Statistical Office (NSO) in Malawi reports that trade between the latter and China has increased by a record 4,894 percent over the past three years.

China’s relations with Malawi picked up noticeably when the two countries established diplomatic relations in December last year, a move which coincided with the southern African country severing its 41-year-old political ties with Taiwan.

Evidence shows that Chinese investment in some countries does not promote the interest of poor nationals, according to Mavuto Bamusi, the network coordinator of the Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), which promotes human rights, including economic rights, in Malawi.

‘‘We know that the Chinese usually bring in their own workers when they invest in poor countries and that they have been accused of dumping cheap goods on such countries’ markets. Civil society will be quick to raise an alarm if such malpractices happen here,’’ Bamusi told IPS.

He said the Chinese should not bring unskilled labour to Malawi but rather create employment for locals if their initiative is to be seen as an ‘‘honest investment’’.

Civil society in Malawi also frowns upon Chinese aid as lacking democratic tenets. NGOs say the terms of Chinese aid contradict the Paris Declaration, an international agreement adopted by more than 100 parties, including governments, in 2005 with the improvement of aid effectiveness as its aim.

The declaration emphasises transparency and accountability in the use of development resources.

The HRCC worries that Chinese aid and investment as agreed with Malawi do not include any component on the rule of law. ‘‘China is giving us an incomplete package with no guarantee of accountability,’’ said Bamusi.

Malawi and China signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) this month (May 12) with a view to advancing bilateral trade relations between the two countries. Malawi hopes to boost trade in its agricultural products, especially tobacco, tea, cotton and sugar – the backbone of the country’s economy.

China has also committed itself to investing in Malawi’s tourism, banking and insurance sectors, as well as in mining and fertilizer and cement production.

The MOU signed by Malawi and China comes hot on the heels of a visit to China by Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika in March to woo investors. The Asian economic giant pledged 286 million dollars in grants, aid and soft loans to Malawi during Mutharika’s visit.

Beijing also promised to assist Malawi with human resource development. The two countries signed trade, economic and cultural exchange agreements. ‘‘I hope the private sector in Malawi will take advantage of my trip to forge further partnerships with our Chinese counterparts,’’ Mutharika told press upon his return from China.

The recent signing of the MOU happened during a visit by 43 Chinese businesspeople, led by Deputy Minister of Commerce Gao Hucheng. He described his delegation as ‘‘high-powered’’.

The Chinese struck several trade and investment deals with local entrepreneurs in the agricultural, banking and insurance sectors, among others.

Malawi’s Minister of Trade Henry Mussa is hoping that the country’s agricultural products will find new markets in China as the country’s exports benefit from preferential tariffs following the MOU.

Recently Malawi’s tobacco industry, for example, has been in disorder following wildly fluctuating prices. Protesting farmers forced frequent suspensions of the auction floors’ business. ‘‘We would like our Chinese counterparts to start manufacturing cigarettes right here in the country,’’ said Mussa.

The country generates up to 70 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from agriculture, with the tobacco industry contributing 15 percent towards Malawi’s gross domestic product. Tobacco and related industries provide livelihoods to about two million of the country’s 13 million people.

Malawi offers a conducive business environment and a favourable economic landscape for investment, according to a briefing that Suzanna Mjuweni, investment promotion manager of the Malawi Investment Promotion Agency (MIPA), made to the Chinese delegation.

‘‘Malawi already boasts attractive trade and investment policies,’’ said Mjuweni. She mentioned the accessibility of plentiful and cheap human capital as a guarantee of an encouraging business environment.

Mjuweni also named Malawi’s access to regional markets like the Southern African Development Community and the Common Market for East and Southern Africa as some of the factors that position the country as a conducive investment destination.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, May 16 2008 (IPS)

The European Commission (EC) has assured Malawi that the country will continue receiving cooperation aid even if it does not sign an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the European Union.

Malawi’s president Bingu wa Mutharika last month accused the European Union (EU) of ‘‘imperialism’’, saying it was punishing countries who resisted the EPAs by threatening to withhold aid from the European Development Fund.

Malawi is not one of the 18 African states that signed the interim EPAs which the EU was attempting to rush through last year. Mutharika said at a press conference last month that he will not allow Malawi to sign the EPA because it has the potential to be harmful to the country.

Heavy pressure against the EPA has emanated from different sectors. Ten of the country’s most influential non-governmental organisations (NGOs) have protested against the signing of the EPA because of the adverse effects that will be caused by sudden and extensive liberalisation.

In contrast, the EU’s head of delegation to Malawi, Alessandro Mariani, said last week that the EU believes that the EPAs would serve the interests of Malawi. He was speaking at the European Day commemoration celebrations on May 9 in the country’s capital Lilongwe.

Mariani also assured Malawi that the EU will go ahead to finance the country with up to 451 million euros, even if the country does not append its signature to the EPAs.

‘‘Please allow me to reconfirm that there is no link between access to grants allocated to Malawi under the European Development Fund and signing the EPAs,’’ said Mariani.

He was reiterating an EC press statement issued on April 18 that declared that aid from the European Development Fund (EDF) will not be tied to the EPAs.

‘‘This is valid for Malawi as well as for all the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) countries which benefit of the development assistance provided through the EDF. (Trade) commissioner (Peter) Mandelson stated that the level of resources made available to ACP countries will remain as has been agreed,’’ said the statement.

The EC admitted that the programming of EDF regional resources will take into account EPA implementation needs but that ‘‘there has at no time been any attempt by the EU to reduce EDF resources for those ACP countries that do not to sign an EPA’’.

The statement further indicated that Malawi was among the very first group of ACP countries that signed the latest EDF arrangement at the EU-Africa summit in Lisbon in December last year, and that no link was ever made with accession to the EPA.

The statement further confirmed that ‘‘the overall objective of European co-operation aid is to assist developing countries in their fight against poverty and in the implementation of their own development strategy to achieve this objective.

‘‘Ownership of European assistance by the partner country is paramount and contributes to the achievement of the millennium development goals, and in particular the national development objectives of the partner country,’’ said the EC.

The EC also reminded Malawi that while it has decided not to initial the EPA, it benefits from the ‘‘Everything but Arms’’ (EBA) trade arrangement under the EU’s generalised system of preferences, like all the other least developed countries (LDCs) in the world.

The statement said that under the EBA all LDCs have duty and quota free market access to the EU market, subject to a transitional period for sugar and rice only. ‘‘Malawi sugar exports to the EU will continue to be able to enter the EU market duty free and will be quota free from 2009 onwards,’’ said the EC.

The statements went on to quote Mandelson that ‘‘it is the right of every country to determine whether an agreement is in its interest’’.

However, Mandelson stated that the EBA is not perfect as it is a unilateral regime offered by the EU while the EPA, as a negotiated agreement covered by World Trade Organisation rules, offers a level of legal security that the EBA does not.

Andrew Kumbatira, who heads up Malawi Economic Justice Network, the country’s most prominent NGO advocating for economic justice, still accuses the EU of failing to make a commitment to funding which will assist countries like Malawi to adapt to a liberalised regime.

‘‘All countries should be at par in the EPAs but the EU is already a great giant in this. We should trade as equals and the EU should help us to get to their level. There is need to resolve issues of supply side constraints and we need funding for us to deal with those but the EU is very silent about such issues,’’ Kumbatira told IPS.

Speaking during the European Day celebrations, Minister of Trade and Industry Ted Kalebe said Malawi was hoping that the ongoing discussions on EPAs will come to a meaningful conclusion by the end of this year.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, May 15 2008 (IPS)

Malawi’s tobacco industry has been in turmoil after wildly fluctuating prices led protesting farmers to force the closure of the auction floors.

Trucks loaded with tobacco at Lilongwe auction floor. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

The tobacco auction floors opened in Malawi’s capital city Lilongwe in March with a kilogram of tobacco fetching between six and eleven dollars. This gave hope to farmers who have struggled to make any profit from the trade over the last few years.

Malawi’s cancellation of subsidies for tobacco production a number of years ago has meant that farmers have to cover the full cost of production.

It costs the average tobacco farmer one dollar to produce one kilogram of the crop, according to Malawi’s ministry of agriculture. But for many years, prices moved between 70 and 90 cents per kilogram.

This placed the heavy burden of perpetual debt on farmers as they failed to settle loans to purchase farm inputs. Most farmers cut production and others diversified to different economic activities.

Then the unexpected hike in prices happened. Godwin Ludzu, a farmer from Malawi’s central district of Kasungu, was among the lucky ones who sold up to 30 bales of tobacco at 10 dollars per kilogram on the first day of trading. He was ecstatic about the profits he made.

‘‘The price was very good. I will be able to settle all the loans I incurred in producing the tobacco,’’ said Ludzu. He has been growing tobacco for six years. The auction prices this year are the best he has ever come across.

However, the exceptional prices did not last. On the second day, the flicker of hope died. Prices have since fluctuated, with the value of the leaf dropping to between 2.30 dollars and 60 cents for the same quality crop.

The statutory Tobacco Control Commission’s (TCC) general manager Godfrey Chapola confirmed that prices started off high because of a tobacco shortage on the global market. He said that that some countries which grow tobacco have stopped while others have reduced production levels, causing consumption to be higher than supply.

The fluctuation in prices has affected farmers badly. Champhira Gondwe, a farmer from the northern district of Rumphi, went to the Mzuzu auction floors in the north of Malawi. He could not sell any of his produce because he found that the tobacco prices were set very low.

‘‘They were being pegged at the maximum price of 2.30 dollars. I couldn’t let my hard-earned produce go at such a low price when our counterparts in Lilongwe sold their tobacco at 10 dollars,’’ said Gondwe.

The Mzuzu floors were closed on April 14 after violence broke out between the farmers and the guards at the market. The farmers physically blocked the buyers from continuing with sales. The TCC then suspended the sales.

The farmers were not ready to let go of their demand for higher prices after hearing about the worldwide shortage of tobacco.

Sales of tobacco were suspended on all four auction floors in April but the floors reopened again in the last week of April.

President Bingu wa Mutharika, himself a tobacco farmer, has previously accused buyers of fixing prices but the buying companies – from the U.S. and Switzerland – have denied the allegations.

The southern African country is a major exporter of tobacco, accounting for five percent of the world's total exports and two percent of total production on the planet. In terms of burley tobacco, Malawi produces some 20 percent of the global total, according to the World Bank.

The country derives up to 70 percent of its foreign exchange earnings from agriculture, and the tobacco industry is responsible for 15 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). About two million of the country's 13 million people depend on tobacco and related industries for their livelihood.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Apr 23 2008 (IPS)

While the European Union (EU) has wanted a conclusion to the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) as soon as possible, the Malawian government has been staving off a deal.

The deadline for EPAs at the end of last year passed without Malawi signing – in contrast to other African states such as Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and the members of the Southern African Customs Union, excluding South Africa.

The Malawi government indicated that it was taking its time considering the implications of the EPAs, for fear of getting bound to an agreement that might not be good for the nation. The EPAs are deals aimed at liberalising trade between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

Secretary for Trade Newby Kumwembe told IPS last month that Malawi does not want to rush into signing an agreement without exhausting all channels of consultation within the government hierarchy.

‘‘The EPA is not a temporary agreement. This is something that Malawi is going to live with for a very long time. We cannot therefore rush to make a decision that might make us have regrets at a later stage,’’ cautioned Kumwembe.

For such ‘‘an important trade agreement’’, the trade ministry, which has been directly involved in the trade negotiations, needs to go through all its bureaucratic channels which meant consulting the whole state machinery.

Kumwembe mentioned the country’s foreign affairs ministry and the cabinet as some of the important groups that have to scrutinise and recommend on whether the country should sign an EPA or not.

‘‘You don’t negotiate for a raw deal. We want to sign an agreement that has no loopholes and that’s why we want to have conclusive consultations,’’ added Kumwembe.

Malawi government consultations can take ‘‘very long’’ and no timeframe has been set for a decision to be made. ‘‘It may take some time before we, as a country, know for sure what we’re going to do on the EPA,’’ said Kumwembe.

At the beginning of this month Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika said at a press conference that he will not allow Malawi to sign the EPA because it will not benefit Malawians. Instead, it is expected to be harmful to the country.

Mutharika went as far as to accuse the EU of ‘‘imperialism’’.

He was critical of the EU’s stance that EPA signatories will be assisted with money from the European Development Fund (EDF).

‘‘This is imperialism by the EU which we must fight against because the EDF funding has nothing to do with EPA conditionalities. They are doing this in order to punish those that who are not signing their agreements. Now, if the agreement is so good, why do they have to force people to sign?’’ asked Mutharika.

The government’s decision could mean that it is bowing to the pressure mounted by 10 of the country’s most influential non-governmental (NGOs). They have been protesting against the signing of the EPA in its current form since early last year.

In April 2007 five civil society organisations wrote to EU president Angela Merkel, arguing that the EPAs will prevent Malawi and other poor countries to protect their domestic industries with tariffs and other means.

The Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), consisting of NGOs advocating economic justice, is one of the organisations that have been against the signing of the EPAs.

MEJN executive director Andrew Kumbatira told IPS that, ‘‘the government should not sign this trade agreement in its current form. Critical issues of development and supply side constraints have not been addressed to Malawi’s satisfaction’’.

He said Malawi would need a capital injection of up to 5.7 billion euros to counter the supply-side constraints and other adjustment costs if it were to benefit from the proposed EPA trading framework.

‘‘But there are no clear agreements in the current form of the EPA on how these resources will be made available to us,’’ said Kumbatira.

Without the resources, Malawi would be fully exposed to the shocks that take place in the commodities markets from time to time.

Kumbatira also said the EU wants to tie Malawians into an agreement that reduces the country’s policy space to consider other and more profitable economic agreements with other regions.

‘‘Asia is an upcoming major economic power which might potentially be a better alternative for Malawi,’’ said Kumbatira. He was worried that Malawi was being asked, under the EPAs, to liberalise 80 percent of all its trade with the EU.

‘‘This means that the Malawian market will be put in direct competition with the European market. This will be very unfair for our small country as we are just an emerging economy. The EPAs could easily destroy the great potential to grow we have.’’

Interestingly, Malawi’s parliamentary committee on trade had already approved the signing of the interim EPA on trade in goods. The temporary deal is aimed at averting disruption of trade between African countries and the EU, following the expiry of the Cotonou Agreement at the end of last year.

The signing of the EPAs was initially slated for the end of last year but ministers from the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region, of which Malawi is part, said at the ESA-European Commission ministerial negotiating meeting in Brussels in November last year that it was not practical to do so.

Kumbatira said at the Brussels meeting African leaders called for more work in the negotiations until they can be reviewed.

‘‘Through the African Union, African leaders underlined the importance of trade and development cooperation to the partnership they share with the EU.

‘‘They stated that now more than ever, Africa needs economic partnerships that will see its people grow in economic power, and living standards commensurate to their dignity as human beings,’’ said Kumbatira.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
BLANTYRE, Mar 29 2008 (IPS)

Long known as a peaceful and quiet city, especially at night, Blantyre is steadily losing its reputation for tranquility. Residents now find themselves waking up to the hustle and bustle of women carrying metal and plastic buckets as they move around the city most nights and early mornings in search of water.

Water cuts that sometimes last up to three days have become a fact of life in Malawi’s commercial hub. And, the parastatal Blantyre Water Board (BWB) – the city’s sole water supplier – has warned that the cuts are likely to persist until 2013 as it replaces dilapidated water pumps with new equipment.

Businesses in Blantyre have resorted to installing on-site water tanks in an effort to cope with the erratic water supply.

The ‘2007 Malawi Millennium Development Goal Report’ indicates that the country is making good progress towards reaching the MDG target which calls for the reduction by half of the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. (This target was set under goal seven, which deals with environmental sustainability. In all, eight MDGs were agreed on by global leaders at the U.N. Millennium Summit held in New York, in 2000; the deadline for the goals is 2015.)

The report states that access to water has improved significantly, from slightly over 47 percent in 1992 to 75 percent in 2006. But the state of affairs in Blantyre could overshadow this achievement.

During a recent media tour of BWB’s main intake facility at Walker’s Ferry on the Shire River in the southern district of Mwanza, superintendent Clive Bismarck explained that transformers have been breaking down at the point where the water is pumped from river to pipeline.

The transformers currently in use were installed in 1963: “The major problem we have is of old age. Our transformers have outlived their lifespan and we need to replace all the transformers to permanently address the water shortages.”

Bismarck added that the utility has begun repair operations and the installation of new and improved machinery that will ensure a more reliable water supply for Blantyre.

He said BWB’s ability to cope with demand is also being outpaced by the growth of Blantyre. The utility is able to pump 75,000 cubic metres of water daily against a demand for 95,000 cubic metres.

Malawi has emerged as one of the fastest urbanising countries in the world with an urban population growth rate of 6.3 percent compared to 0.5 percent in rural areas, according to the United Nations Centre for Human Settlement.

Persistent water shortages cause city residents to flush their toilets less frequently and to compromise on other basic elements of household hygiene such as dish washing. As a result, unpleasant odours emanate from houses and the risk of water-borne diseases has become a constant problem.

Cholera used to occur mainly in the rainy season when contaminated water entered the distribution system as a result of floods. Now, there are instances of the disease throughout the year, as poor hygiene is conducive to the spread of the Vibrio cholera bacterium.

If left untreated, cholera causes diarrhoea that can lead to kidney failure and death by dehydration within 24 hours. Since the beginning of this year at least eight people have died in a cholera outbreak in areas around Blantyre, which is located in southern Malawi. Up to 291 cases of cholera were reported within a three-week period in the region.

During a severe outbreak in 2002, more than a thousand people died of cholera in Malawi.

The water shortages in Blantyre led to the suspension of BWB Chief Executive Officer Owen Kankhulungo in November last year. A press statement signed by the utility’s board chairman, Tarsizius Nampota, said Kankhulungo had been suspended ahead of investigations into the causes of the water shortages.

Before his suspension, Kankhulungo had said that the shortages were a direct result of the water system being both inadequately maintained and over-utilised. He has since been quietly reinstated.

Kankhulungo told Finance Minister Goodall Gondwe during a pre-budget consultation earlier this month that BWB’s ability to upgrade the water system is compromised by the taxes it is obliged to pay.

He proposed that the minister waive tax on BWB’s imports of equipment for maintenance and expansion, noting that the utility cannot claim back thousands of dollars in duties paid on these goods.

However, the minister has been less than sympathetic to the BWB. Acknowledging that the current tax system does affect the utility, Gondwe said he had little respect for water boards because of their inefficiency.

“Over the past 40 years BWB has not repaired its equipment. BWB has become a nationwide problem. This year my budget will try to answer some of the problems that we have at BWB…but I will be very reluctant to give tax relief.”

Amidst this wrangling, many residents have now resorted to using rain water that has collected in ditches.

Those who have cars drive to BWB headquarters where they draw water from taps at the utility’s offices.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Feb 27 2008 (IPS)

Low prices continue to haunt Malawian tea on the auction floors, a bitter irony for some producers as the country is regarded as the pioneer of tea-growing in Africa.

Workers on a tea estate in Mulanje, southern Malawi. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda/IPS

Currently Malawian tea is grown in the southern districts of Thyolo and Mulanje and the northern lakeshore district of Nkhatabay.

The tea-growing areas boast sprawling estates that are also tourist attractions.

The country’s current annual tea exports stand at about 43,000 metric tons, contributing three percent of global tea exports, according to the Tea Association of Malawi (TAML), an association of 10 major tea growers in the country.

The crop is the country’s second biggest foreign exchange earner, contributing 7.9 percent of total export earnings, says the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI). Tobacco remains the main foreign exchange earner.

The southern Africa country ranks second after Kenya as the largest producer and exporter of tea in Africa. It is also twelfth on the global list of tea producing countries.

But despite the country’s prominence in the cultivation of this crop, Malawian tea producers complain that the price for Malawian tea is low when compared to its neighbour, Kenya.

Auction floor prices at the end of last year (2007) showed that the local produce was selling at 1.44 dollars per kilogram for the top grades. Kenyan tea, on the other hand, was fetching up to 3.31 dollars per kilogram at the time.

A decrease was noted in the average price of the product during 2007. In 2006, prices averaged 1.22 dollars per kilogram compared to an average price of 1.02 during 2007.

Lack of competition on the tea auction floors in Malawi is the main factor that is crippling the local tea sector, according to Sangwani Hara, TAML chairperson.

He ascribed Kenya’s higher prices to the benefits of competition among a range of buyers. Another factor is that, unlike Kenya, Malawi does not have its own tea brand.

‘‘Kenya has a brand that attracts buyers. Here in Malawi, TAML is working on branding the local tea but it will need money,’’ Hara told IPS.

Malawian tea is exported to European, Asian and U.S. markets. Kenyan tea, on the other hand, also has big buyers coming from Egypt, Pakistan and Russia on top of the traditional markets that it shares with Malawi.

The MCCCI says the tea industry in Malawi has been stagnant for a long period of time even though tea production has been increasing. Additional investment is necessary through joint ventures with Malawian companies to improve the farming methods and processing of the crop.

Malawi’s tea production was expected to reach higher production levels of 45 million metric tons for 2007. Of the 45 million metric tons for 2007, about 2.5 million metric tons was sold locally, says Hara.

The problem of low prices has existed for the past few years. But tea growers want to take the bull by the horns and reverse this trend.

Hara indicates that TAML, in collaboration with the Malawi Investment Promotions Council, is working towards attracting more buyers. One of the strategies is to come up with the country’s own local brand of tea.

The MCCCI has identified a new opportunity in the processing of green tea for East Asian markets.

TAML has also partnered with the Malawi Tea and Coffee Merchants Association of Malawi (MTCAM), Tea Brokers Central Africa and Tea Commodity Brokers in social initiatives such as charity auctions. The proceeds are donated to AIDS orphans and other people with needs.

This initiative is about tea growers showcasing their commitment to corporate social responsibility while encouraging buyers to pay higher prices for the commodity as part of fulfilling their social duty.

Corporate social responsibility also extends to the workers on the tea estates who are very poor. The tea estates support the surrounding communities, which supply most of their workers, by providing social amenities such as health clinics, recreation facilities, schools and safe water.

Tea prices hit a record 29 dollars per kilogram at a charity auction held in Malawi’s commercial capital Blantyre on November 27, 2007.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Jan 31 2008 (IPS)

Malawi finally has to face up to the dilemma of choosing between being a member of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) or to stick with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) if it is to continue receiving funding from the European Union (EU).

Developing countries like Malawi have been promised assistance to adapt as they open their markets to the EU by agreeing to an economic partnership agreement (EPA) with the EU.

EPAs are a new set of ‘‘trade and development’’ deals aimed at removing barriers and creating a free trade area (FTA) between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP).

The European Development Fund (EDF) is the instrument with which the EU has promised to help EPA signatories.

International law expert George Naphambo told the media that Malawi is compelled to choose between belonging to either SADC or COMESA because aid from the EDF will be disbursed on the basis of membership to a regional economic community such as SADC or COMESA.

Naphambo said a country cannot receive EU funding from both bodies, which are two different regional economic communities, as this would mean the country has double access to funds compared to other states.

‘‘It is clear that if Malawi is to benefit from EU funding, it has to belong to one regional economic community – unless the EU comes up with a formula for funding countries which belong to more than one such community,’’ said Naphambo.

He said if this formula is not developed, there will be pressure on Malawi to leave either one of the bodies as soon as possible. ‘‘When push comes to shove, Malawi will have to make a decision because it cannot forego EU funding,’’ said Naphambo.

Economic analysts in Malawi are recommending that the small southern African country is better off staying on in COMESA instead of SADC since the rules of origin in COMESA offer better market access than those in SADC. Rules of origin refer to the country-based exclusion of certain inputs that go into exports.

SADC, on the other hand, is seen as outdoing COMESA as a major export destination, according to Andrew Kumbatira, executive director of the Malawi Economic Justice Network, the country’s primary influential non-governmental organisation that promotes economic and trade justice.

Kumbatira says no country should belong to two customs unions. ‘‘SADC will soon formalize its own regional customs union and the COMESA customs union is also set to come into effect by next year,’’ he says.

He recommends that Malawi should opt for COMESA since it offers a greater variety of economic dynamics than SADC.

COMESA is the largest economic bloc in Africa, comprising 20 countries with a population of about 385 million people, total gross domestic product of 165 billion dollars and overall exports of 25 billion dollars, according to a 2006 COMESA report.

SADC, on the other hand, is geared towards the political development of its members, according to influential human rights activist Mavuto Bamusi, who also thinks COMESA is the preferable bloc for Malawi to align itself with.

Bamusi says that, as Malawi is at the moment looking at trade as the best development pillar to put in place, COMESA would be its best bet.

‘‘Of course, the decision is not an easy one. Malawi has to be very strategic in making the decision since there are also political implications that will arise. In SADC, Malawi subscribes to a number of very important protocols on issues like anti-corruption and women’s participation – these issues cannot just be left hanging.

‘‘There has to be a strategy on how the country will still apply these commitments,’’ says Bamusi.

He says Malawi’s predicament on its dual membership with SADC and COMESA is a long-standing issue which should now be resolved quickly – but not because of the EPAs. ‘‘Malawi should make an independent decision on this and not do it just to make the EU happy.

‘‘The EU should not hold Malawi or any other country to ransom over the EPAs. The EDF should not be aligned to the EPAs – as civil society organisations we are against such an alignment,’’ says Bamusi.

Bamusi, who also opposes the EPAs, says the EU should be obliged to compensate countries that will be ‘‘harmed’’ by the EPAs. ‘‘We are saying that countries like Malawi have so much more to lose than gain in the EPAs. They should be compensated regardless of what customs union they belong to,’’ argues Bamusi.

Malawi should make its choice between COMESA and SADC now because it will be safer sticking to one bloc to avoid a situation where it could be ‘‘tossed from one bloc to another” based on regional integration.

Malawi’s trade minister Ken Lipenga is on record that the government is still consulting on the way forward on the COMESA-SADC predicament.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Jan 28 2008 (IPS)

Malawians still await the details of the impending economic partnership agreement (EPA) which their government is entering into with the European Union (EU).

Ten of the country’s most influential non-governmental (NGOs) have embarked on various initiatives to signal their grave concern about the implications of the EPA for Malawi.

The EPAs are a new set of deals aimed at creating a free trade area (FTA) between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.

In April last year, five organisations wrote to EU president Angela Merkel arguing that the EPAs will not allow Malawi and other poor countries to protect their domestic industries with tariffs and other means.

In their latest statement, the NGOs feel ‘‘compelled to challenge the government in court for violating people’s rights’’ if Malawi goes ahead with the signing of the EPA.

The organisations are: the Malawi Economic Justice Network, ActionAid Malawi, Malawi Health Equity Network, Maphunziro Foundation, Manerela, the Institute for Policy Interaction, Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, National Smallholders Farmers Association of Malawi, Youth and Children Shield, and the Joint Oxfam Programme in Malawi.

By signing the EPAs, the government of Malawi will be ‘‘tying the citizens into 25 years of acrimony’’, said the organisations.

The EPAs have been formulated in such a way that they will not benefit the people of Malawi nor add value to their ability to end poverty, said the organisations.

‘‘We alert the general public and civil society in Malawi not to fall for the intimidating and pressurising tactics that are being used by the EU to convince us that these EPAs are good for us,’’ the organisations declared.

According to the organisations, Malawi would need a capital injection of ‘‘a whooping 5.7 billion euros’’ to take care of supply-side constraints and other adjustment costs for the country to benefit from the proposed EPA trading framework.

‘‘Without such an injection, Malawi would remain the way it is – with full exposure to the shocks that take place in the commodity market from time to time.’’

The NGOs pointed out that Malawi was party to the Lome’ convention, a trade arrangement that gave preferential treatment to ACP countries’s products between 1975 and 2000. However, during this period ‘‘our exports to the EU dwindled and supply-side constraints remain an issue for our industries.

‘‘What has changed to make us believe that these next 25 years with EPAs will be any different?’’ the NGOs asked.

Another contentious issue is that Malawi has been asked to liberalise 80 percent of all trade with the EU. The NGOs see it as an erosion of policy and developmental space.

The NGOs regard Malawi as a small and emerging economy with a lot of potential. History shows that for the EU to have reached its current scale of economic muscle it used a combination of policies aimed at boosting local production and protecting local industries against unfair foreign competition, said the organisations.

Malawi’s parliamentary committee on trade last month approved the signing of the interim framework agreement of the EPA. The temporary deal is aimed at averting disruption of trade between African countries and the EU, following the expiry of the Cotonou Agreement at the end of last year.

The signing of the EPA was initially slated for the end of last year but ministers from the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) region, of which Malawi is part, said at the ESA-European Commission ministerial negotiating meeting in Brussels in November last year that it was not practical to do so.

In the meantime it has transpired that Malawi was due to sign an EPA on its own, leading the NGOs to say that Malawians are being misinformed as Malawi is not signing as part of a bloc of countries, as was originally envisaged.

The EPA will therefore put Malawi in direct competition with the EU at a time when Malawians are hopeful of rebuilding the jobs, industries and livelihoods that had been destroyed through that other imposed scheme, the World Bank’s structural adjustment programmes, according to the NGOs.

The government has not said much on the issue. Secretary for Trade Newby Kumwembe only said that the government was weighing up the options of the trade agreement before signing it.

‘‘We need to look at all outstanding issues and make a decision. We also need to look at how our products will be affected if we do not sign this deal,’’ said Kumwembe.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
BLANTYRE, Dec 24 2007 (IPS)

Many communities around the world may take water for granted; but for those living along Malawi’s longest river, the Shire, water is something to die for. The 400 kilometre long river is the main outlet of Lake Malawi as it flows south into the Zambezi River.

While the Shire River is the most convenient water source for people living on its banks, it is also home to killer crocodiles. Women and children, required by tradition to fetch water for their households, are most at risk from the crocodile attacks.

"In one area in Machinga, locals estimate almost three deaths a month," states the United Nations Development Programme’s 2006 Human Development Report on Malawi.

Agnes Wilson, now in her late 50s, survived a crocodile attack seven years ago while fetching water from the Shire River in the south of the country. She escaped with her life but lost the use of her right arm.

"The crocodile attacked me just as I dipped the bucket I was using to draw water into the river. The beast tried to drag me to the deep end (of the) river, but I was luckier than others who have died. I was rescued by some men who were passing by," she recalls.

Despite almost losing her life, Wilson braves the crocodiles every day to fetch water. There is no other option for her and her community; the borehole nearest to her village is 15 kilometres away.

"I have just accepted the risk I face every time I go to the river. Either I die of thirst or die while trying to fetch water…I may die fighting for survival if a crocodile attacks me again," says Wilson.

There are no statistics available for the crocodile population in Malawi, but people like Wilson claim there are many, especially in the Shire River.

Traditional leaders in the south of the country, especially those from the Lower Shire Valley, have accused government of caring more about crocodiles than human beings.

Malawi is a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which limits the culling of various animals, including crocodiles. Before the country signed up to CITES in 1982, it used to kill about 800 crocodiles annually; under the agreement, this number has now been reduced to 200 per year.

WaterAid, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) that helps the world’s poorest people gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education, indicated in a 2003 study that up to 44,000 people in the area had no access to safe water and had to resort to the crocodile-infested river for their water needs.

A programme officer for WaterAid in Malawi, James Longwe, says he knows of three women in Machinga who have been seriously injured by crocodiles while fetching water.

"One of the women lost an arm, while the other two have very deep wounds on different parts of their bodies following the attacks," says Longwe.

He says that some communities have lost count of the number of people who have been attacked by crocodiles.

Longwe adds that WaterAid, in partnership with local assemblies and a local NGO called Target for National Relief and Development, is helping communities at risk of crocodile attacks to have access to safe water by providing a gravity-fed water supply.

"We have managed to provide…safe water to 18,000 people. We hope to reach every one of the 44,000 people in need of safe water by the year 2011," says Longwe.

Crocodile attacks are not the only dangers facing communities along the Shire River.

The water quality from the river is itself poor: waterborne diseases such as cholera, diarrhea and dysentery are perennial problems in the area.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) recorded over 4,000 cases of cholera, a disease associated with poor sanitation, and lack of hygiene and access to potable water, in the Shire region over a three month period last year.

In its planned Humanitarian Action Report for 2007, UNICEF says it is supporting cholera prevention awareness campaigns, helping construct and rehabilitate wells and sanitary facilities in 400 schools and 150 community-based childcare centres, and undertaking sanitary surveys of water sources.

The agency also says that it is providing buckets with messages in local languages about the safe handling of water and disposal of excreta and solid waste, providing soap and detergents – and disseminating hygiene messages on prevention of cholera and other diseases.

The Malawi Millennium Development Goal (MDG) Report 2007 indicates that the country is making good progress towards reaching the MDG target which calls for the reduction by half of the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water.

The report states that access to water resources has significantly improved, from about 47 percent in 1992 to 75 percent in 2006.

"At this rate of change, the projection shows that by 2015 about 94 percent of the population will have sustainable access to an improved water source, which is above the MDG target of 73 percent," says the report. (ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/AB/DC/EN/SU/TW/WW/PS/SSL/JH/07)

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Dec 19 2007 (IPS)

Foreigners working illegally as small-scale traders are increasingly being regarded as a threat to their local counterparts in Malawi. The outsiders are setting up businesses which, local Malawians believe, are displacing them.

Devil Street in Lilongwe is known for its foreign traders. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda

She is an example of the foreigners who are being accused of ‘‘taking away’’ business opportunities from locals. Malawians believe that the foreigners possess business strategies and skills which most native traders lack.

‘‘I came to Malawi in 2004 to escape war in my home country. I used the money I came with to set up my businesses here,’’ says Shabani. She started her business with 6,000 dollars. Her ventures are now carting in a profit of about 2,500 dollars per month.

Shabani’s earnings seem like a fortune in a country where up to 45 percent of the population is classified poor, according to the 2007 Malawi Millennium Development Goal report.

When it comes to Malawian businesswomen, only five percent of them are aware of available trade opportunities, according to a 2007 study conducted on behalf of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) by the Federation of National Associations of Business Women in COMESA.

In contrast, Shabani is knowledgeable about different marketing methods and able to identify the most lucrative trade opportunities. ‘‘I am trying to make a living here so I have to be as shrewd as possible. I just have to work hard and employ every strategy which can see me live a better life,’’ she says.

But native Malawians are unhappy with people like Shabani. Grace Kalemera, who owns a beauty salon close to Shabani’s, complains that the Burundian ‘‘stole business from her’’ by establishing her shop so close to Kalemera’s.

‘‘Customers are more interested in sampling foreign services. They go to Shabani’s beauty salon because most of her employees are also foreigners,’’ claims Kalemera.

The Malawian businesswoman blames lack of vigilance by the authorities in effecting laws. ‘‘A lot of foreigners are left to take part in informal trade at the expense of indigenous business people,’’ laments Kalemera.

Trading spots that are close to refugee camps in Karonga in northern Malawi, Dowa (about 45 km north of the capital Lilongwe) and the capital itself are the most popular outlets among refugees.

Last month, police in the north of Malawi intercepted 71 illegal immigrants from Ethiopia on their way to the country’s capital.

But refugees are not the only group of foreigners perceived to be encroaching on small-scale businesses in Malawi. Nationals from China, Tanzania, Pakistan, India and Nigeria have also been accused of trading illegally in the country’s main cities of Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.

In October this year, the Malawian government launched an operation to address the problem of Chinese and Nigerian traders accused of operating unlawfully.

Trade and Commerce Minister Ken Lipenga was quoted in the media as saying the operation was ‘‘to flush out illegal foreigners’’ and that the influx of Chinese and Nigerian traders was causing a big problem.

According to the government, most of these traders are contravening business licensing procedures for investing in a business by foreigners. A minimum of 50,000 dollars is required before the issuance of a trade permit to a foreigner.

A number of shops owned by Chinese nationals have since been closed down in Lilongwe. ‘‘It is imperative that foreign traders follow the country’s investment procedures,’’ Lipenga said.

Between November 26 and December 1, 2007, the immigration department arrested 90 illegal immigrants in a routine exercise which happens every quarter of the year.

The exercise took place in the capital and at the tourist destinations of Zomba and Mangochi in the southern region, according to the immigration department. Traders from Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi, China and India were arrested in the operation.

The department says all the Rwandans and Burundians have since been returned to a refugee camp in Dowa as they were found doing business without permits. The remaining foreigners were sent to court to formally be charged with the offence of contravening permit conditions.

According to the immigration department, being found doing business without a legal permit is met with one of two legal responses: the foreigners could have their permits cancelled or they could be deported.

There are over 8,000 refugees in Malawi, according to deputy minister of home affairs, Vuwa Kaunda. He says most of them are in the 18 to 25 age group.

‘‘Our rough statistics show that Malawi has 2,400 refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo, 3,600 from Rwanda, 1,840 from Burundi and about 1,000 Somalis,’’ says Kaunda.

The government, together with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), has just concluded a verification and registration exercise of all refugees and asylum seekers residing in the country.

The purpose of the exercise was to collect and verify information about refugees and their families in the country to ensure that they are known persons to both the government and UNHCR.

All adults are registered and will be issued with identity documents confirming their status as refugees, according to Malawi’s ministry of home affairs.

These identity documents will, among other things, protect refugees and asylum seekers from being confused with undocumented or illegal immigrants,’’ states a press release issued by the government.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Nov 21 2007 (IPS)

Malawi’s coffee producers have come up with innovative plans to kick start the country’s sluggish coffee industry, including the marketing of specialty blends which are uniquely Malawian.

Despite the boom in coffee consumption in many markets, Malawi has in recent years been struggling to find buyers for its locally produced coffee. Out of a total volume of 2,500 metric tons produced last year for the international market, local farmers only managed to export 1,307 metric tons.

There has been a downward trend in Malawi’s coffee bean production every year since 1991, when the country reached a peak of 7,720 metric tons of coffee beans. Coffee growers only produced 3,703 metric tons in 2001, dropping to 2,500 metric tons in 2006.

The Coffee Association of Malawi (CAMAL), an organisation representing cooperatives and large and small commercial farmers, attributes the progressive decline in production to the departure of growers from the industry and the reduction in hectares under the crop.

‘‘Coffee used to be one of the major contributors of foreign exchange earnings but this is no longer the case,’’ says CAMAL’s technical and marketing executive, Peter Njikho. Currently, Malawi’s major foreign exchange earners include tobacco, cotton and sugar.

CAMAL wants to reverse the downward trend by pursuing higher value markets for its coffee. ‘‘Malawi has to search for buyers beyond its traditional reliance on the one or two commodity buyers that have regularly bought from here,’’ says Njikho.

The country’s traditional buyers have been the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany and South Africa. But this year, Malawi coffee has the potential of reaching other markets in Switzerland, the U.S., Canada and Japan.

CAMAL has managed to attract buyers from these countries. One of the selling points is that Malawian coffee tends to be softer on the palate and have lower acidity than its African counterparts.

To push for an increased market awareness of the quality of Malawi’s coffee, CAMAL has joined forces with the Malawi Investment Promotion Agency (MIPA), the United Nations Development Programme’s Growing Sustainable Business (GSB) programme and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

GSB broker Jan Willem van den Broek says Malawian coffee producers have become increasingly aware of the high quality of their coffee beans and the potential to sell in coffee specialty markets.

‘‘Since last year, measures have been taken by CAMAL to transform the country into one of the world’s premium specialty coffee producing nations,’’ says van den Broek.

He explains that Malawi has both the climate and altitude to produce high-quality coffee but that most of the country’s coffee is being exported as ungraded green beans.

Through the new initiative, CAMAL has embarked on processing its own local blends and brands. One such brand is the Mzuzu Coffee being produced in the northern region of Malawi by the Mzuzu Coffee Planters Cooperative Union.

The union, which comprises of 3,200 smallholder farmers, produces some of the highest-quality coffee in Malawi.

‘‘The cooperative not only exports green beans, but also roasts and brands its specialty coffee under the name ‘Malawi’s Mzuzu Coffee’. In 2005, roasted Mzuzu coffee won the country’s first coffee cupping competition, and since then it has been showcased at numerous international cupping competitions,’’ says van den Broek.

The increased market awareness by CAMAL has also managed to attract international coffee experts and buyers such as David Roche from the Coffee Quality Institute in the U.S. and Craig Holt from Atlas Coffee Importers. The Coffee Quality Institute is a non-profit organization that works to improve coffee quality worldwide.

Roche and Holt recently met with Malawian coffee producers and made a presentation on improving the quality of the coffee.

The initiative by CAMAL is aimed at improving exports and thereby foreign exchange while boosting coffee producers’ profits.

Producers are worried that they, like producers in other African countries, are facing potentially harmful non-tariff barriers from the European Union (EU).

Some European conservationists are saying that transporting products by air to sell in other countries increases pollution and is therefore bad for the environment. This could frustrate Malawi’s efforts in opening new markets for its produce.

CAMAL is therefore also working hand-in-hand with nine other countries (Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe) to render their coffee globally marketable despite the barriers they may be facing from the EU.

The African countries are fighting the challenges as one front under an umbrella body called the Eastern African Fine Coffees Association (EAFCA). During a recent visit, EAFCA’s executive director, Philip Gitao, commended local coffee producers for their efforts to work together.

He was attending the ‘‘Test of Harvest’’ competition aimed at encouraging growers to come up with coffee that could compete on the international market. The winner of the competition received a full sponsorship to utilise laboratories in Geneva, Switzerland. The Mzuzu Coffee Planters Cooperative Union scooped up the first two positions.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Oct 5 2007 (IPS)

Despite the reduction in trade tariffs within the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), member states are still grappling with non-tariff barriers which restrict the flow of exports and imports. This is regarded as putting brakes on the improvement of trade volumes in the region.

For the first time ever, a sub-regional meeting on the status of the elimination of non-tariff barriers in COMESA took place in Blantyre, Malawi, a week ago.

The permanent secretary for Malawi’s ministry of trade, Newby Kumwembe, expressed concern that COMESA’s vision is being threatened by non-tariff barriers. Its vision is of establishing a fully integrated, internationally competitive regional economic community which prospers economically.

‘‘We have witnessed the reduction in tariffs but non-tariff barriers are still there. Non-tariff barriers include excessive customs and administrative entry procedures. Elimination of these will facilitate the free circulation of goods,’’ said Kumwembe.

He said Malawi, in particular, and COMESA as a whole stand to benefit from the removal of non-tariff barriers because, with them, will go all hindrances to exporting commodities.

‘‘Countries in the region will consequently enjoy economies of scale. At the moment, least developed countries are the most exposed to non-tariff barriers,’’ he said.

Official documentation on the status of the elimination of non-tariff barriers in COMESA was made available at the meeting.

It showed, for instance, that Uganda has complained about Egyptian authorities’ requirement that certificates of origin of products be endorsed by the Egyptian embassy in Kampala, Uganda, before the dispatch of any Ugandan products to Egypt.

These endorsements entail the payment of ‘‘legalisation fees’’. ‘‘The Egyptian embassy in Kampala is still charging ‘legalization fees’ for all Ugandan products,’’ states the document.

Zimbabwe is also on record as having complained to COMESA at some point that Malawian authorities required a pre-shipment inspection on all its goods.

According to the same record, 56 percent of all reported non-tariff barriers consist of customs and administrative entry procedures, including customs valuation, rules of origin and pre-shipment inspection; technical barriers to trade; sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures; and import regulations.

Kenya, for example, is reported to have complained about Ugandan authorities who have been requesting that samples of milk be tested by the Uganda dairy development authority while refusing to accept the certificate of analysis from the Kenya bureau of standards on any Kenyan product.

Malawi has also complained about the low quality of wheat that neighbouring Zambia brings into Malawi. ‘‘The COMESA secretariat has commissioned studies in respect of the wheat flour sector in Malawi, Zambia and Kenya and the results are yet to be finalized,’’ according to the official documentation.

Other complaints across the different member states include that exporters are forced to pay export charges twice within the country of origin. Furthermore, exporters spend lengthy periods of time at the borders before authorities let them into the countries where they aim to market their goods.

Some member countries, according to the documentation, exhibited a lack of willingness to adhere to the COMESA free trade agreement, fearing loss of competitiveness and revenue.

In a speech delivered by COMESA Senior Trade Policy Expert Geoffrey Osoro, COMESA Secretary General Erastus Mwencha called on member countries to forge ahead with a common strategy to eliminate the trade barriers.

Osoro said the meeting was convened as there has been a continued proliferation of non-tariff barriers to trade in the region. Mwencha urged member states to focus on the larger picture, which is to create a trading environment that is free from hindrances.

By the end of the meeting, COMESA member states agreed to establish national enquiry points (NEPs) in every country to report, monitor and eliminate non-tariff barriers.

The member states agreed that they had the potential to decrease the levels of the non-trade barriers if their efforts were coordinated.

The East African Business Council, represented by Ogwal Mosses, a trade economist, pledged its support to COMESA’s effort to remove trade barriers.

Meanwhile, COMESA plans to launch a customs union next year, which is widely expected to unlock trade and investment opportunities in the region. The Malawian ministry of trade indicated at the meeting that the creation of a customs union will help to address non-tariff barriers.

The creation of a customs union is overdue as article 45 of the COMESA treaty requires member states to establish a customs union over a transitional period of ten years from the ratification of the treaty, which happened in 1994.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
LILONGWE, Sep 28 2007 (IPS)

In Malawi up to a quarter of all households are headed by women. Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy and some 80 percent of Malawians directly depend on this sector. With an average of six children per household, most women embark on small business ventures to supplement their income from agricultural activities.

As trade becomes increasingly sophisticated and global, small businesswomen in Malawi face a major challenge in catching up with the changes-especially because female adult literacy sits at a measly 44 percent. (Up to 72 percent of the male population is literate.)

Only five percent of women in Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Namibia and the Democratic Republic of Congo are aware of available market opportunities in the region, according to a 2007 study conducted on behalf of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA).

The research results also showed that businesswomen in COMESA face common challenges regarding their ability to penetrate the export market. These findings are a wake-up call for women in the region, according to Mary Malunga, chairperson of the Federation of National Associations of Business Women in COMESA (FEMCOM).

She also heads Malawi’s National Association of Business Women (NABW).

FEMCOM has been working towards promoting programmes that integrate women into trade and development since July 1993. It has now embarked on a programme to create awareness of export markets among women in the COMESA free trade area (FTA). The FTA includes Djibouti, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Madagascar, Sudan, Mauritius, Malawi and Kenya.

‘‘We want to build the capacity of FEMCOM members in business and export management skills so that women in the region are able to compete favourably in both the regional and global market,’’ Malunga told IPS.

The sectors that FEMCOM is concentrating on are agriculture, fishing, mining, energy, transport and communication. The organisation is also looking at natural resources with the aim of improving the economic conditions of women.

COMESA has a gender policy which clearly articulates the important role of women in regional activities. Despite the policy and noble vision and objectives of COMESA, says Malunga, gender inequality remains a major problem affecting regional integration efforts.

‘‘Women in particular tend to have limited access to regional and international markets. But the factors causing this situation have not been adequately documented,’’ worries Malunga.

Understanding of the COMESA trade regime among particularly Malawian businesswomen has been found to be minimal. The nature and level of participation by Malawian businesswomen in COMESA intra-regional trade is only through informal cross-border trade.

FEMCOM has found that despite the launching of the COMESA FTA in 2000, women traders in the various member states are still subjected to harassment.

This includes unwarranted searches and confiscation of goods by customs officials who are not gender sensitive. These experiences discourage many women from undertaking activities beyond their borders.

Other major problems facing women in COMESA include unfamiliar and complicated procedures in export management, lack of quality control skills, packaging, import management and techniques.

‘‘Inadequate access to trade information and market research is also a key barrier to women’s participation in trade. Women tend to be more seriously affected than men by these problems due to the low levels of education among the majority of women in COMESA,’’ Malunga points out.

She is also concerned that women may be inadvertently excluded from the benefits of the regional free trade area due to complicated procedures, such as adherence to rules of origin in order for goods to be excluded from customs duties.

‘‘Most women may not be aware of this requirement due to illiteracy and lack of information while the majority may not qualify for certificates of origin because of the production processes they use,’’ says Malunga.

Inadequate access to credit and finance has also been cited by the FEMCOM chairperson as a major barrier to effective participation in regional and international trade. She says the requirement of collateral disqualifies many women from accessing credit as they have limited access to and control over property.

The low quality of goods produced by women is another barrier blocking them from competing effectively in liberalized economies.

Other factors leading to the challenges are the inability to form partnerships and joint ventures; inadequate sources of capital for women entrepreneurs; and the low capacity of women’s business associations.

The training that has been formulated by FEMCOM therefore includes sensitization on the COMESA trade regime, quality management, packaging, market information, standards and business management.

Malawian women have the potential to break into the regional market with locally made good and products, says Evans Lwanga, a consultant working at the COMESA secretariat who is training women in export marketing.

‘‘There is a lot of potential. These women are very hard working. The challenge has been that they lack information about the markets. COMESA has come in to build capacity so that the women are aware of the trade agreements in the region,’’ according to Lwanga.

FEMCOM’s long term plan is to build its own capacity to provide technical and financial resources. Its goal is to enable women in business to actively participate in intra-regional trade at the formal level.

FEMCOM Malawi is also working on establishing a women exporters’ association that will actively advocate for policies to be conducive for the involvement of women in the export market. It will also lobby decision-makers on behalf of its membership to alert them to problems that especially women face at border posts.

FEMCOM has requested the government of Malawi to involve business associations and individuals in the formulation of policies which have a direct impact on their activities. Furthermore, customs and border post officials should be trained in customer care and awareness of the COMESA trade regime.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
BLANTYRE, Sep 24 2007 (IPS)

Rita Kalikokha of Dowa, a rural district in central Malawi, thinks about abandoning school every time she menstruates.

A woman washes her baby in contaminated water, in Dowa. Credit: Pilirani Semu-Banda

Rita says she and other adolescent girls find these poor sanitation conditions even more awkward when it is time for their monthly periods: "It’s so difficult to concentrate in class when you know there is no water to clean up with at break time. I usually prefer staying home every time my menses come."

She says many girls in her school drop out as soon they reach adolescence as they cannot bear the inconvenience and embarrassment of having to do without water. Government statistics in Malawi show that that 10.5 percent of girls drop out of school each year as compared to 8.4 percent of boys. In addition to this, around 22 percent of primary school age girls do not attend school at all, while 60 percent of those enrolled do not attend regularly.

However, Rita’s problems concerning water are not confined to the school environment. Her village has no access to safe water. As the only girl in a family of five children, she is bound by tradition to fetch water to satisfy the needs of all four of her brothers and both her parents.

"There is very little time for me to do my homework as most of my days are taken up by my trips to fetch water."

She walks a distance of four kilometers to and from the nearest well. Her family uses this water for cooking, washing household utensils and drinking. Rita also has to ensure that there is enough water for herself, her father and mother to bathe. Her four brothers usually use a nearby stream to bathe – the same stream used by villagers as a toilet.

Child mortality is particularly high in the Dowa area, where almost every fifth child does not reach the age of five, according to the United Nations Children&#39s Fund (UNICEF).

But the problems with water provision and sanitation are not confined to rural areas in Malawi. Slums in towns and cities face similar difficulties as residents have to wait in long queues to buy water from kiosks or from boreholes.

In Ntopwa, a squatter area in Malawi’s commercial capital of Blantyre where most people eke out a living on less than a dollar per day, women resort to scooping out water from ditches of stagnant rain water. The troughs are their only water source, as they cannot afford to buy water from kiosks or boreholes. Waterborne illnesses such as diarrhea, dysentery and cholera are therefore very common in this area.

Many girls in Blantyre have similar experiences to Rita and other rural girls because the Ministry of Education frequently fails to pay water bills for local primary schools.

In the first six months of the year, more than 124,000 pupils had to use bushes around their schools to relieve themselves because Blantyre’s Water Board disconnected the water supply at 22 schools due to the government’s failure to pay bills.

Permanent Education Secretary Anthony Livuza had to plead with the Water Board to reconnect the water supply to avert an outbreak of diseases in the schools. The water supply company eventually reconnected the water, but asked the ministry to speed up paying for the service.

The United Nations Development Programme’s 2006 Human Development Report indicates that up to 33 percent of Malawi’s 12 million inhabitants have no access to safe water, while only 27 percent of the people have access to improved sanitation.

The country’s Minister of Water Development, Sidik Mia, says that having so many people without access to proper water and sanitation services jeopardises the socio-economic development of Malawi: "The effects of this go on to spread in the health, education and agriculture sectors."

He says government’s new national sanitation policy will give priority to the requirements of schools and will serve the public better with an integrated water resources management policy.

Meanwhile UNICEF is assisting in Rita’s Dowa region, where wells are being drilled for schools which currently have no water supply. The U.N. agency is in the process of installing hygienic latrines and washbasins in schools. It is also helping households in 30 communities to install hand washing facilities outside their pit latrines.

WaterAid, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) that helps the world’s poorest people gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education, is helping Malawians to influence government and other NGOs to allocate more resources to water, sanitation and hygiene.

A policy and advocacy manager for WaterAid in Malawi, Amos Chigwenembe, says the organisation aims to help 136,000 people have access to safe water and another 131,000 to gain access to sanitation every year by 2010.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
BLANTYRE, Sep 12 2007 (IPS)

The proposed economic partnership agreements (EPAs), which are due to come into force beginning next year, may undermine the benefits of another European Union trade initiative, called Everything-But-Arms, for the sugar industry.

The EPAs are new bilateral trade accords currently being negotiated between the European Union (EU) and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. In terms of the EU’s EPA proposal to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), sugar will be subjected to a transitional phasing out of duties and quotas until 2015.

The Everything-But-Arms scheme grants duty-free and quota-free access to all products except arms from the 49 least developed countries. This provision will be extended to sugar in July 2009.

Illovo Sugar is the largest sugar producer in Africa with operations in Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, South Africa and Zambia. The company has indicated that the EPAs, while presenting an opportunity for more sugar exports to the EU, will also lead to declining sugar prices.

The managing director for Illovo Sugar (Malawi), David Haworth, told the media in Malawi at the company’s 42nd annual general meeting last month that sugar prices are likely to come down in three phases after the EPAs come into effect. This will correspond with the phasing out of duties and quotas, which will start in 2008 and end in 2015.

At the moment, sugar prices are between 400 to 500 euros per metric ton. Prices are predicted to fall to just 335 euros per metric ton. The drop may continue even further in 2009 when duty-free access will be extended with safeguards. Quota and duty requirements will only be scrapped in totality in 2015.

Illovo Sugar (Malawi) plans to expand production to take advantage of the market access allowed under the EU’s Everything-But-Arms (EBA) initiative. However, the EBA comes into effect in 2009 when sugar will see a significant revenue drop due to the EPAs.

The Malawian government pointed out in a 2005 study on the impact of the sugar reforms that the period when production is due to be escalated to benefit from the EBA coincides with the EU&#39s decision to cut its minimum guaranteed price for sugar.

The EU price will drop by 36 percent between 2006 and 2009 to bring it in line with the world sugar price.

The drop in prices will make it more difficult to meet the investment requirements for scaling up production to take advantage of unrestricted EU sugar market access afforded by the EBA.

The 2005 study, conducted by Malawi’s ministry of trade, summarised the outlook for Malawian sugar as uncertain.

‘‘Malawi stands to lose significantly from the erosion of its preferences under the ACP sugar protocol. However, the country will also benefit from improved access to the EU market under the EBA scheme, albeit at lower prices,’’ said the study.

According to Illovo’s Haworth, he has been ‘‘to Brussels for negotiations on the EPAs so that we get the best possible access. Overall, it is good for the Malawi sugar industry because it means more exports to the EU market. But we will have to increase production in order to make a little profit’’.

Illovo’s managing director based in South Africa, Don MacLeod, said at the same meeting that despite sugar fetching lower prices, the EPAs will be good for the sugar market across the world.

‘‘The EU is reducing protection of its domestic market and this provides us with additional access. What is important now is to increase tonnage to that market,’’ said MacLeod.

MacLeod and Haworth’s optimism stems from the acquisition of 51 percent of Illovo Sugar by Associated British Foods (ABF). ABF, which aims to benefit from duty-free access to the EU from 2009, has supplied support to Illovo’s operations. Their coming onto the scene is an advantage to Illovo because they know the EU market better, said MacLeod.

ABF has a good distribution network which would also be good for Malawi sugar.

Geoffrey Mkandawire, the commercial manager at Illovo Sugar (Malawi), told IPS that that the sugar industry in Malawi had anticipated that the economic and trade relations between the ACP and the EU had to eventually become compatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.

‘‘Nonetheless, we would like to see that the preferential benefits of least developed countries are not eroded in the EPAs. The WTO rules allow for the special and differential treatment of least developed countries,’’ he said.

Malawi has placed sugar among the 102 sensitive products listed by the country’s manufacturers, exporters and government officials. Mkandawire pointed out that sugar is recognised worldwide as a sensitive product. He says the EU, in its one-page offer to the ACP made in April this year, clearly indicated it as such.

‘‘In every producing country, the product is subject to import control, mostly through very high import tariffs and import licensing. We would like to see order and fair trading in the business, hence import licensing should be kept in place for as long as possible and as long as other countries are keeping it on,’’ says Mkandawire.

But as the Malawi sugar industry braces itself for the EPAs, it has another problem locally: this year’s production may be lower due to poor weather conditions. But Mkandawire remains optimistic that production can still be increased.

Excerpt:

By Pilirani Semu-Banda
BLANTYRE, Aug 30 2007 (IPS)

Malawi’s national budget, scheduled to pass in June, is in limbo following a parliamentary impasse – and there are fears that government services may be halted through lack of funding.

Public expenses were only covered last month after parliament authorised the finance minister to spend up to eight million dollars, this after government had requested 32 million dollars to fund the civil service for four months.

Already, there is the possibility of a drug shortage at the country’s biggest referral hospital, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, and elsewhere.

Hospital administrator Thom Chisale says the medical centre usually gets government funding in the first week of every month, but that difficulties with the budget sitting have meant a delayed allocation for the month of August. Without funds, decisions cannot be made about drug procurement, he notes: “The effect of this will be a massive shortage of drugs around the country any time soon. All services at the hospital will suffer. If the budget is not passed soon, we have a crisis looming.”

Workers in the public service – the country’s biggest employer, with 120,000 on the pay roll – are concerned about where this month’s salary cheque will come from, if the budget crisis continues.

“The damage that could be caused if we don’t receive our salaries would be unimaginable; we have a lot of bills to settle, including rent,” says Civil Service Trade Union President Thomas Banda, warning that public workers will sue government if they do not get paid at the end of August.

The vote on the 1.2 billion dollar budget was initially delayed by the death of Malawian first lady Ethel Mutharika, who passed away in May.

Budget proceedings were then derailed in a political wrangle sparked by a Jun. 15 ruling of the Supreme Court, authorising the parliamentary speaker to expel lawmakers who had defected from the parties they belonged to when elected to the National Assembly in 2004.

President Bingu wa Mutharika had himself deserted the United Democratic Front (UDF) after falling out with his predecessor, Bakili Muluzi, later forming his own political grouping, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP); this came just eight months after he was elected head of state. Mutharika’s actions effectively transformed the UDF from Malawi’s ruling party into an opposition group alongside the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), the largest opposition grouping in the legislature.

While Mutharika’s presidential seat will not be affected by the ruling, up to 60 members of parliament (MPs) who joined the DPP risk losing their positions. The court’s decision could leave Mutharika’s party with as little as five MPs.

One of the affected legislators, Yunus Mussa, later obtained an injunction restraining the speaker from acting on Supreme Court’s decision. This angered opposition parliamentarians, who are now a majority in the 193-strong body: MCP leader John Tembo refused to discuss the national budget until the injunction obtained by Mussa was vacated.

The political stand-off deepened Jul. 24, when the DPP lost a motion to debate and pass the budget while matters pertaining to the injunction were being resolved by the courts. This led to a further suspension of proceedings.

Parliament met again Aug. 13 after Mutharika wrote to parliamentary speaker Louis Chimango, warning him to reconvene the National Assembly to discuss the budget or risk closure of all parliamentary business. Although opposition parties argued that the president had no mandate to dictate the agenda of the legislature, they heeded his call and started participating in the budget talks.

While debate is still underway, it is not known whether the budget will be approved any time soon. Parliamentary proceedings continue to be marred by verbal battles between the opposing parties, and speaker Chimango has warned that he will resign if the MPs persist with their rowdy behaviour.

Many Malawians, including members of civil society, have been angered by the National Assembly’s conduct.

Rights activist Rafiq Hajat says the current situation is unnecessary, and that legislators should resolve matters quickly and pass the budget before the country is thrown into economic disarray. “The absence of a budget will inevitably militate against donor aid inflows,” he notes.

The British government, Malawi’s biggest bilateral donor, has already appealed to the warring forces to resolve their differences. London provides the Southern African country with about 141 million dollars annually.

“We urge all political leaders to engage in constructive dialogue in an effort to reach a compromise as soon as possible,” says Lewis Kulisewa, spokesperson for the British High Commission.

Hajat says the country may also see its currency, the kwacha, slipping on international markets, and that this will raise prices of essential commodities such as food, fuel and fertilizer – a blow to the many citizens battling poverty. According to the United Nations Development Programme, 65 percent of the country’s 12 million people live below the poverty line of a dollar a day.

Daily demonstrations have been taking place around Malawi in protest against the impasse, including a 24-hour vigil by a group of 65 non-governmental organisations held for a time near parliament.

The leader of the vigil, Undule Mwakasungula, accuses politicians across the board of being “very arrogant and not having the welfare of the people at heart”.

Members of the public have also been making noise every day using car horns, bicycle bells and whistles for 15 seconds at 7.30, 12.30 and 17.30 local time, to protest against parliament’s failure to pass the national budget.

In addition, university students worried that education facilities may be closed if the budget is not dealt with have been staging protests which turned violent Aug. 6, causing one student and three opposition MPs to be injured.

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