However, I’m not sure I would fancy eating
nothing but mangoes. Yet, that is what poor families in some parts of the
country are doing these days, according to an article in the Malawi News a
couple of days ago. The column quoted Florence Mughogho, mother of five, as
saying that on three days a week she boiled 15 green mangoes. The children got
three mangoes each, together with a drink of water. On the other days they got
a small amount of porridge made from cornflour. I have no idea what Florence
herself ate.
Up in the north, hunger is biting. There is
no maize at all in the markets: the drought killed it off. Family granaries are
empty. The only work available is piecework for landowners. Digging 20 ridges 10
metres long so the land is ready for the planting season will earn you K100,
about 10p, a story confirmed by the village headman. Many are too weak to work.
The papers are calling it ‘slavery’.
The World Food Programme has started
distributing food relief to 2.4 million people in Traditional Authority Ng’abu
alone. Another 6 million are at risk in other areas. Other organisations such
as UNICEF, the Italian government, the World Food Programme and the World Bank
are also contributing. Britain has provided K8.75 billion, just under £10.38 million.
The President has had to swallow his pride and go with begging bowl in hand to
the western donors who withdrew their budgetary support a couple of years ago
after the Cashgate corruption scandal. They won’t fill his country’s coffers,
but they will provide humanitarian aid.
Hunger has a knock on effect on other
physical conditions. It makes you more susceptible to malaria, for instance,
and weaker when you go into labour. A spokesman for Livingstonia Synod Aids
Programme said that 200 people with HIV/Aids which it is supporting, are
suffering badly because of the effect on the body of taking ARVs when hungry. Multiply
that across a country where 12% of the population is HIV positive.
Now the hunger this year may be a
‘one-off’, another result of El Nino. However Malawi has been a poor country
for a long time. The continuing impact of climate change and environmental
degradation caused by felling trees for firewood and charcoal burning cannot
easily be reversed. In its 2012 study, Population Action International pointed
to the impact on agricultural productivity of erratic rainfall, dry spells,
droughts, high temperatures, floods and water scarcity. The result is poor crop
yields and serious food shortages. Cereal harvests have fallen by 27% this year
(Food and Agriculture Organisation) The World Food Programme says that 2.8
million people will face hunger.
Despite the warning signs, nobody really
expected Malawi to be placed right at the bottom of the global socio-economic
heap, as the World Bank announced a short time ago. It is among the bottom ten,
among failed states like Somalia, Yemen and Afghanistan, on many indicators, even
the number of traffic accidents!
Ironically, Malawi, unlike these countries,
has not suffered armed conflict on its soil for a hundred years or more,
indeed, since the David Livingstone days of slave raids and inter-tribal fighting.
So, we can’t blame war. Why isn’t Malawi up there with countries like Ghana and
even Malawi’s near-neighbour Zambia which shares many of its ethnic
characteristics – poor enough, but doing better than Malawi?
The IMF has recently announced that Malawi
has failed to meet its targets. GDP growth has fallen from earlier projections
of 5.5% to 3%. A former finance ministers, Matthews Chikaonda, has just claimed
that Malawi will remain in poverty for at least another 24 years, partly blaming
its high population growth rate, 2.5% per year. Women have on average 6 or 7
children each.
One of the main contributions to the high
birth rate is child marriage. The recent Marriage Act forbids marriage under
age 18, though implementation remains doubtful. Teenage mothers leave school, their
talents lost to society, bringing up their children in poverty. And the younger
they start bearing children, the more they have. One of the key predictors of
neonatal and maternal death is having more than four children. When a mother
dies, her children are less likely to thrive, more likely to drop out of school
and, if they are girls, likely to be sold off to raise family income, repeating
the same cycle of deprivation.
Malawi has a population of 16 million
people projected to increase to 18 million next year and 40 million in the next
10 years, with inevitable pressures on food security, heath and education
services. 1,300 new citizens are born every day. The Anglican Bishop for Southern
Malawi recently made a plea for people not to have children they could not care
for. The First Lady herself has agreed to be Patron of the Family Planning
Association of Malawi.
Both Zambia and Zimbabwe have smaller
populations than Malawi but significantly more land. For example, Zambia has 13
million people in a country five times bigger than Malawi. Land mass matters when
80% of the population are farmers.
The Catholic Development Commission in
Malawi, (CADECOM) recently launched a campaign called Realisation of Right to Food (RTF) for All Citizens: A Responsibility
for Everyone. The campaign aims to support the poorest, those involved in
subsistence farming. Interventions include crop diversification, small-scale irrigation,
conservation agriculture, crop storage and care of livestock. British and Irish
taxpayers are supporting CADECOM’s food security programme. Big players like
the World Food Programme, Caritas and Oxfam are supporting Disaster Risk
Reduction programmes to reduce the impact of drought and flood.
Other organisations are working with smallholders
on developments such as growing pigeon peas, a high protein crop able to resist
extreme climatic conditions, like El Nino. They grow certified seeds which are passed
on to other farmers as well. The stalks are used for fodder and the leaves for
fertilizer.
A group of non-governmental organisations
including Oxfam, CADECOM and Action Aid are focusing support on women, who
comprise 70% of the agricultural work force. The group says that Malawi is
‘being pushed to the edge by climate change’.
Malawi continues to vie with its dysfunctional
competitors in a rush to the bottom of the league tables. Global Age Watch
Index 2015 (HelpAge International) places Malawi among the bottom six countries
which are the worst places to grow old.
What do I see as I walk the streets or
drive out into the bush?
I see teenage mothers and babies begging at
the sides of roads; worn out older mothers, resembling my mother at 93,
shriveled, wrinkled and with sticks for arms and knobbly necks. Their listless
infants have reddish brown hair, a telltale signs of chronic malnutrition. Exhausted
old people sink in heaps on the pavements.
A couple of days ago, I saw six-year-olds picking
up ants and fallen seeds from the filthy dust of the school compound, and
popping them into their mouths. They’re not starving, but they’re not well fed
either. They’re hungry lethargic children. There’s nothing wrong with eating
ants; they’re a good source of protein. My colleagues exchange recipes. They
fry them lightly and make them into a tasty and nutritious sauce. Not unwashed,
however, in a country where 40% of child deaths are from diarrhoea. No pit
latrines means open defecation. Just don’t even think about what is in that
dust.
These children are Malawi’s future, sitting
under the trees in classes of two hundred, ill fed, ill educated and unlikely
to receive much if any treatment if they fall sick. They can’t walk the 35
kilometres to the nearest health centre. Neither can their pregnant mothers or
ancient grandparents.
In one school, parents were removing their
children from class and sending them across the nearby border to Mozambique to
pick tobacco. The children come back with two pails of maize, and serious
health complaints, another form of slavery.
One could go on and on.
Malawi failed to meet four of the
Millennium Development Goals: eradicating extreme poverty, providing universal
primary education, promoting gender equality and improving maternal health. These
are the very areas which Malawi needs to address to pull itself out of poverty.
And all of them relate to women and girls. How will it do on the 17 new
Sustainable Development Goals?
Of course, we all know about corruption in
Malawi. (And, indeed, in the UK if truth were told...) It’s not just the corruption that makes people poor, though it is a very
significant factor. Think of the stolen heath supplies, the hospitals without
even Panadol and where women in childbirth have to bring in their own birthing
kits: a waterproof sheet, a reel of cotton and a pair of gloves for the nurse.
All bought in the open market, one factor in the terrible rates of sepsis among
newborn babies and their mothers. Health centres have just had their funding cut by half.
The country is over-dependent on tobacco
which employs 12% of Malawi’s workforce, contributes 13% of its GDP, provides 25%
of its tax base and brings in 60% of its foreign exchange earnings. (Tobacco
Growers Association of Malawi) Sounds good but who would want to rely so heavily
on tobacco in a world in which smokers are either dying or giving up? Earnings
from tobacco dropped 8% this year.
Malawi is Africa’s second biggest producer
of tea after Kenya. Tea, a cash crop for export, is its second foreign exchange
earner and contributes 7% to GDP. However, tea also suffered from the drought.
The drop in output and earnings this year is expected to be the biggest on
record.
Because so few people receive a regular
formal salary, Malawi has a very small tax base, not much of a buffer when
things go wrong. And even people who you think would pay tax don’t, including
some of the very rich businessmen and politicians. Why? They just don't have
to. You may think our own politicians do well. There are amazing perks for
politicians here. Presidents, Ministers and MPs don’t pay tax at all. All cars
are imported, but politicians don’t have to pay duty. Senior politicians retain
benefits like free housing and even their official cars when they leave office.
So what is the government doing to address
the funding crisis? Devising a system for taxing the informal sector, 91% of
whose businesses operate without registration. Yet most formal businesses don’t pay taxes. The corporate tax share is only
16.5%. A couple of days ago I listened while the manager of the Santa Plaza
supermarket openly asked a customer if he would get him some ‘black market’
Samsung TVs. Those missing taxes would pay for school books, classrooms, mosquito
nets, ARVs, contraceptives, fertilisers and birthing kits.
So those are some of the reasons why Malawi
is so poor.
Well said. Very well said
ReplyDeleteThanks Jeff. Much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeleteAll roots laid bare. We have a daunting task.
Thank you, Chisomo. Daunting indeed, but not impossible.
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