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| National |
| Malawi poorer — UN report |
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by
Pilirani Semu-Banda, 06 August 2004
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12:49:33
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Malawi continues to get poorer each passing year since ushering in the democratic era and remains among the poorest 36 countries in the world, a 2004 Human Development Report (HDR) has shown.
The country, which last year was ranked at number 162 has gone down to 165 out of 177 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI). The index measures average achievement in three basic dimensions of human development — a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living.
Among the indicators where the country has deteriorated in from last year’s report are life expectancy which has gone down from 38.5 to 37.8 and the gross domestic product (GDP) rank minus the HDI rank which has moved from 11 to nine (this means the country is producing more but the gap has narrowed).
The report also reveals that HDI trends consistently rose from 1975 to 1995 when they started to drop. The HDI value for 1975 was 0.315, reached its peak of 0.408 in 1995 and was at 0.388 in 2002.
On human and income poverty, Malawi has dropped one place in the human poverty index (HPI-1) rank from position 82 last year. This index measures deprivations in the three basic dimensions captured in the HDI.
The country also slid dangerously on the HPI-1 rank minus income poverty (percentage of population living on less than a dollar a day) rank, moving from four to one last year. A positive figure means the country performs better in human poverty than in income poverty.
The report also shows that the country failed to reduce the number of people living below the poverty line of US$1 a day, keeping it at 41.7 percent of the population which represents approximately 4,962,300 people.
Government spokesman Ken Lipenga said the report should serve as “a wake-up call particularly for us people in leadership role”.
He said people are looking up to the leaders to change the situation and that this is why President Bingu wa Mutharika is working on managing the economy better.
“I will only echo what the President has always said that Malawi is not a poor country as such. It is the people that are poor and this is because we don’t put our resources to better use,” said Lipenga.
He said Malawi does not belong to the rank it is in now.
“We have to manage our economy better and that’s what exactly we’re doing,” said Lipenga.
But deputy national coordinator for the Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) Mabvuto Bamusi said the country keeps getting poorer because the levels of commitment to improving the welfare of people are not there.
“Our levels of overexpenditure explain it all, as we tend to spend most of our money on non-poverty reducing activities such as state residences, foreign travel and the National Intelligence Bureau,” said Bamusi.
He said when it comes to the poverty reducing activities in government through departments such as in the Ministry of Agriculture, over 70 percent of the money is spent on “mere administrative issues”.
“As a nation, our priorities are lopsided,” said Bamusi.
Last year, when he was Minister of Economic Planning and Development, the President said the country continues to experience inequality in income or consumption distribution whereby the richest 10 percent are consuming 42 percent of goods and services.
Mutharika said interest payments on domestic debt were diverting resources away from pro-poor programmes.
In 2002, UNDP indicated that Malawi is one of those countries that will not be able to meet by 2015 Millennium Development Goals set by the UN General Assembly in 2000 such as reducing hunger, achieving environmental sustainability, reducing maternal mortality rate and reducing the under-fives mortality.
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