BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost)—Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera has today launched the long-term national development plan, christened “Malawi 2063” with a call for concerted efforts in confronting the country’s challenges.
The Vision 2063, a successor of the futile Vision 2020, was launched virtually at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe.
The blueprint has been formulated by the National Planning Commission (NPC), an independent institution established by the Act of Parliament in 2017 with a mandate to formulate the medium and long-term development plans of the country and coordinate their implementation.
In his speech, President Chakwera called for concerted effort to have the aspirations espoused in the plan achieved by the set period.
“Let us resolve to harness the individual and collective resolve to thrive against all odds that is unique to us as Malawians. Then, and only then, will we indeed be the first generation of Malawians to inherit a low-income economy and leave it a middle income economy,” said Chakwera.
Along the country’s focus on the future, the president said there must be some reflection on what assets Malawi can build on presently and what sins from the past people must avoid.
He said: “Admittedly, Malawi is blessed with a rich array of such assets as fresh water, fertile land, fine minerals, and free society. However, by my reckoning, our historic failure to translate these resources into inclusive prosperity stems from our failure to tap the full potential of the one resource that has the power to catalyse and leverage all the others. The Catalyst I speak of is the ingenuity of the Malawian people.”
Speaking earlier, Vice President Saulos Klaus Chilima, who is also Minister of Economic Planning and Development and Public Sector Reforms, said with the launch of Malawi 2063 development plan, all political parties in the country will be required to align their respective party aspirations to the country’s long-term blueprint.
Chilima bemoaned the tendency displayed by political parties for not aligning their promises and priorities with the first long-term masterplan, Vision 2020, which expired last December.
Professor Richard Mkandawire, Chairperson of the National Planning Commission thanked all stakeholders who contributed to the formulation of the blueprint, with a special recognition to former President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika for being a strong supporter of long-term development plans.
“Special recognition goes to the former Head of State, Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika for being a strong supporter of long-term development planning in Malawi and launching the consultation process for the MW2063 envisioning process in February, 2020. It is during his tenure of office that the NPC was established to promote the continuity of development programmes beyond political regimes. In the same vein, the NPC recognizes the role of all the past presidents who have made various positive contributions towards the Malawi we see today,” reads the acknowledgement.
While Vision 2020 focused on security, mature democracy, self reliant with equal opportunities for and active participation by all, having social services, vibrant cultural and religious values and being a technologically driven middle-income the Malawi 2063 is centred around the theme ““An Inclusively Wealth and Self-reliant Nation.”
But why 2063?
According to the framers of the blueprint, the year 2063 was specifically targeted because the country will have attained 100 years of self-governance by that year.
“For a long time, our development efforts have focused on poverty reduction and are largely driven by development aid. This saddles us with the yoke of dependency while, despite all the efforts in that regard, the level of poverty in Malawi remains high.
“MW2063 shifts the trajectory from dependency to the concept of wealth creation and self reliance. This perspective promotes ways of enabling the poor to create wealth for themselves as a conduit of ending poverty. MW2063 showcases our positive thinking towards wealth creation for all and self-reliance. Our collective resolve to go beyond political freedom to sustainable economic independence and development for each and every one of us is the engine that will drive the implementation and realization of the Vision.
“By the year 2063, we shall have a vibrant economy that will support a home-grown development agenda. The year 2063 was specifically targeted because the country will have attained 100 years of self-governance. We are, therefore, planning long-enough and selflessly across generations for our children. Thus, the focus is no longer ‘what is in it for me’ but ‘what is in it for our children and their children’. We desire that by 2063, our children shall have attained true economic freedom and development. They shall walk tall in the corridors of the global economy while no longer relying on the goodwill of others to survive and thrive,” reads the development plan.
Recently, the Malawi Confederation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (MCCCI) attributed failure to attain key aspirations of a development strategy dubbed Vision 2020 to lack of focus on specific development goals.
MCCCI Chief Executive Officer, Chancellor Kaferapanjira, also attributed the vision’s flop to lack of political will.
“Vision 2020 had challenges in that although there were long term-targets, we did not have mid-term targets which would enable us measure the progress. We were not working towards very specific goals in the short term and as a result, we ended up achieving nothing,” Kaferapanjira said.
He added that different political regimes, during the 25- year period of implementing the country’s long-term economic transformation blueprint, did not mind essence of the vision because of lack of targets and did not feel bound to implement the vision to the letter.
The strategy, according to Kaferapanjira, was also premised on many wrong aspirations.
Vision 2020 assumed that by the year 2020, Malawi, as a God fearing nation, would be secure, democratically mature, environmentally sustainable, self-reliant with equal opportunities for and active participation by all, having social services, vibrant cultural and religious values and a technologically driven middle-income economy.
But as of today 19th January 19, 2021, Malawi remains among the poorest countries of the world with 50.7 percent of the population still living below the poverty line. About 25 percent of the population lives in abject poverty.
Figures from the Vision 2020 review report show that between 1994 and 2018, annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate for the country averaged 4.39 percent compared to an anticipated annual GDP growth of about nine percent if the country was to attain the anticipated aspirations.
It is yet to be seen if political parties will align their short development plans with the newly launched long-term blueprint.
Already, president Chakwera asked Malawians to forget about campaign promises he made saying the promises were made on assumptions and conditions that no longer hold.
