Contents
- The Plans Have Been Clear for a Long Time
- The Government Has Named the Problem Itself
- Recommendations That Were Never Carried Through
- When Funding Exists, Delivery Still Falls Short
- These Problems Have Been Solved Elsewhere
- Why Delivery Breaks Down
- How Much Do Circumstances Explain?
- What Could Change the Outcome
Malawi Knows What It Needs. The Gap Is in Delivering It.
Nearly thirty years of national plans—and why so little has reached the people they were written for
I am Malawian. This series asks a question many of us ask at home: if we know what the country needs, why does so little of it arrive?
Between 2022 and 2023, Malawi suffered the worst cholera outbreak in its history. More than 1,700 people died—1,772, according to the World Health Organization. Cholera spreads through unsafe water. Treated water and working sanitation prevent it; wealthy countries have had both for generations. As of 2024, about 18% of Malawians drink safely managed water. That is fewer than 4 million people in a population of about 21.7 million.
When I speak with people in Malawi, they describe the country’s needs clearly: enough food, clean water, reliable electricity, roads that connect markets, and safety. They know what development requires. What weighs on them is how little arrives, year after year, plan after plan. In the 2024 survey by Afrobarometer, an independent pan-African research network that polls citizens across the continent, 76% of Malawians said the country was heading in the wrong direction. Food shortage was the problem they most wanted the government to address.
The official record supports what they say. Malawi does not lack plans or an understanding of its needs. It has consistently struggled to turn those plans into delivery. The clearest evidence comes from the government’s own documents.
The Plans Have Been Clear for a Long Time
Since 1998, Malawi has produced a near-continuous series of national development plans:
- Vision 2020 (1998), a long-term vision of where Malawi should be by 2020
- The Malawi Poverty Reduction Strategy (2002)
- Three five-year Malawi Growth and Development Strategies, known as MGDS I, II and III (2006–2022)
- Malawi 2063 (2021), a vision for the country by 2063, to be delivered through ten-year plans. The first, the Malawi 2063 First 10-Year Implementation Plan (MIP-1), covers 2021–2030 and is estimated to cost around $15 billion
Across these plans, the diagnosis is consistent: reduce dependence on rain-fed maize, diversify exports, build infrastructure, and strengthen a public service that Vision 2020 itself described as “weak, inefficient and lacking in client orientation.” These are sound priorities.
The deadlines, however, keep moving. Electricity shows the pattern plainly:
| Plan | Electricity access target |
|---|---|
| MGDS I (2006) | 30% by 2020 |
| MGDS III (2017) | 50% by 2022 |
| Malawi 2063 / MIP-1 (2021) | 50% by 2030 |
| Actual, 2024 | About 16% of people, roughly 3.4 million, have electricity of any kind—the third-lowest rate in the world |
Source for the actual figure: Tracking SDG7 2026, the UN-backed annual report on progress towards the global goal of energy for all (Sustainable Development Goal 7).
The broader scorecards tell a similar story:
- Vision 2020 aimed for income of $1,000 per person by 2020. A government-commissioned review later calculated that this required growth of at least 9% a year. Between 1994 and 2018, growth averaged 4.4%. Income per person stood at about $389 in 2019.
- MGDS II (2011–2016) targeted 7.2% annual growth and achieved under 4%.
- MGDS III, at its midpoint, had met 85 of its 215 indicators—the measurable targets it had set itself.
- MIP-1, three years in, had only 40% of its planned interventions (the specific projects and reforms it contains) on track, and 4% complete.
Adjusted for inflation, the average Malawian’s income—gross domestic product per person, in constant 2015 US dollars—was $508 in 2010 and $548 in 2025. For fifteen years, living standards have not meaningfully improved.
The Government Has Named the Problem Itself
Many countries miss their development targets. What stands out in Malawi is how directly its own institutions have explained the failures.
- Malawi 2063 (2021): “Vision 2020 suffered political interference partly due to the absence of an independent implementation monitoring agency.”
- The Director General of the National Planning Commission (2021): Malawi has “become renowned for being good at crafting planning and policy documents but poor on implementation.” The Commission was created by law in 2017 to draw up Malawi’s plans and oversee their implementation.
- The Commission’s 2023 annual report: alongside external shocks, it blamed the nation’s “low implementation capacities as well as lack of urgency in executing the MIP-1 in certain cases.”
- The Commission’s July 2024 progress report release: it listed four causes of missed targets: external shocks, unsustainable public debt, low capacity, and “sheer negligence among some implementers, both in and outside government.”
The response has followed a familiar course:
- July 2024: the Planning Commission recommended a “MIP-1 acceleration plan.”
- December 2025: the Ministry of Finance said in its annual economic and fiscal policy statement that it was “developing the MIP-1 Accelerator Programme” to “fast-track implementation.”
- June 2026: the approved financial statement for the 2026/27 budget did not mention it. It referred instead to a new National Economic Recovery Plan, built from MIP-1’s priorities.
There is no public sign that the measure designed to speed up implementation has itself been put into effect.
Recommendations That Were Never Carried Through
Beneath the national plans lies a long record of reviews, commissions and expert assessments. Many are thorough and well-founded. Few have been carried through.
As far back as 2006, researchers at ODI, the London-based think tank formerly known as the Overseas Development Institute, recorded an observer’s remark that Malawi had “one of the highest concentrations of policy documents per square metre” in Africa. They added that many of those documents, “some of them quite good,” were “never translated into consistent policy implementation.”
The pattern has continued:
- Decentralisation (1998). The policy committed 5% of net national revenue to local councils as a general grant they could spend as they chose. In 2012/13 and 2014/15, that grant came to about half of one percent. In 2018/19 and 2019/20, the money transferred to councils came to only about 3–4% of domestic revenue. There were no elected councils at all from 2005 to 2014. ODI described the situation in 2014 as “a decentralisation policy that is not being implemented but remains on the books.”
- The Public Service Reform Commission (2015). Chaired by the vice-president, it recommended limits on presidential appointment powers, fixed terms for key office-holders, and a smaller Cabinet. By 2017, a member of Parliament was describing reform as having “nothing moving on the ground.” The government’s own 2018 reform policy acknowledged that earlier reforms had resulted in “partial implementation” and “have not been instrumental in transforming the public service.”
- The inquiry into the July 20, 2011 protests, in which more than 20 people were killed, recommended, among other things, compensation for the families of those who died. Fifteen years later, those recommendations remain unfulfilled.
- The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) advice on the exchange rate. The IMF lends to countries in financial difficulty, usually on condition of reforms. Malawi has had repeated programmes with it. In February 2010, the IMF said its programme would “allow a market-clearing exchange rate to emerge.” In July 2025, its directors agreed that “a unified market clearing exchange rate is integral to achieving macroeconomic stability.” In plain terms, this means a single exchange rate for the kwacha, set by supply and demand, instead of an official rate held above what the currency is worth on the street. Between those dates, the kwacha was devalued several times: by nearly 50% in 2012 and, most recently, 44% in November 2023. The IMF loan programme agreed in 2023 ended in May 2025 without completing a single review.
- The World Bank, the international lender that funds many of Malawi’s largest development projects. In 2017, its main economic report on Malawi chose to focus “less on the ‘what to’, and more on the ‘how to’.” Its 2023 report was launched with the words: “While the policy prescriptions are known, implementation and results are elusive.”
The Auditor General’s annual reports show the same pattern from inside the state. In five consecutive reports, the independent official responsible for auditing government accounts notes that, in some cases, his recommendations have not been duly considered by the officials responsible.
His most recent report, signed in July 2026, lists 17 public bodies that failed to provide documents for audit, among them the Anti-Corruption Bureau, the Ministry of Finance and Parliament. He warns that this failure suggests institutions “are actually hiding fraudulent activities.”
When Funding Exists, Delivery Still Falls Short
Malawi is a poor country, and lack of money is a real constraint. Yet a significant share of the development budget goes unspent every year.
The government budget has two parts: recurrent spending, which covers salaries and running costs, and the development budget, which pays for projects such as roads, schools, irrigation and water systems. According to the Auditor General, the following shares of the revised development budget went unspent:
| Year | Unspent |
|---|---|
| 2020/21 | 59% |
| 2021/22* | 46% |
| 2022/23 | 30% |
| 2023/24 | 27% |
| 2024/25 | 32% (K563 billion) |
*Nine-month transition year, when Malawi moved its financial year. K = Malawi kwacha. Source: Auditor General annual reports.
In four of the last five reports, the explanation is almost identical: projects “not implemented in full due to delays and low disbursements… and lack of expertise on the implementation of projects.”
Major donor-funded projects tell a similar story, recorded in the funders’ own evaluations.
Shire Valley irrigation is meant to irrigate 43,370 hectares in southern Malawi, where hunger recurs whenever the rains fail.
- Its first phase paid out $154 million of its $160 million in World Bank financing between 2018 and 2024 without irrigating a single hectare. It was rated “Unsatisfactory.” The review notes that the main canal had to be rerouted because of “poor engineering design.”
- By mid-2026, the second phase had paid out about 95% of its funds, and the irrigated area was still zero. Its target was reduced from 21,000 hectares to 1,000.
- Water is now expected to reach the first 255 hectares of farmland “before April 2027.”
Blantyre’s water project ($145 million, approved in 2023) had not improved water supply for a single resident by mid-2026. The World Bank’s progress reports record that “precious time was lost around elections”, that the Ministry of Water and Sanitation was closed and its responsibilities split, and that project resources had been redirected “towards maize procurement.” About 56% of the water Blantyre’s water board treats is never billed—a figure the World Bank notes is still being verified.
The Mozambique–Malawi power interconnector, a high-voltage line meant to let Malawi import electricity from its neighbour, was financed by a World Bank project originally scheduled to close in December 2022. The line was energised for testing in August 2026, with commercial power trade still awaiting a tariff agreement.
The Mpatamanga hydropower dam, a 358.5-megawatt project meant to expand Malawi’s power supply substantially, has not begun construction of the dam itself. As of May 2026, it had not reached financial close—the point at which all funding agreements are signed and construction can begin. The earliest expected completion is 2030.
These Problems Have Been Solved Elsewhere
In 2000, Rwanda was poorer than Malawi. A quarter of a century later, the difference is substantial.
| Income per person, 2000 → 2024 | Electricity access, 2000 → 2024 | |
|---|---|---|
| Malawi | $419 → $552 (1.3×) | 5% → 16% |
| Rwanda | $331 → $1,043 (3.2×) | 6% → 72% |
| Ethiopia | $248 → $883 (3.6×) | 13% → 57% |
| Bangladesh | $621 → $1,941 (3.1×) | 32% → 99.5% |
World Bank World Development Indicators. Income figures are in constant 2015 US dollars.
- Bangladesh, one of the most climate-exposed countries in the world, reduced cyclone deaths more than a hundredfold after 1970 through community warning systems and shelters.
- Ethiopia, landlocked like Malawi, built a 752 km railway to the port of Djibouti.
Each country’s path was different, and none offers a simple model. Rwanda does, however, show something Malawi has struggled to build: a system that makes delivery somebody’s responsibility. Under its Imihigo system, in place since 2006, district mayors and other officials sign annual performance contracts with the President. The results are evaluated and published. That mechanism is worth studying, while recognising the legitimate concerns raised by Rwanda’s political system. The lesson lies in the delivery mechanism, not the politics.
Why Delivery Breaks Down
The record points to several recurring causes. None reflects a lack of commitment among ordinary Malawians.
Changes of government interrupt continuity.
Development plans run for 10 to 40 years; governments are elected for five. MIP-1 explicitly commits “to avoid curtailing and/or inclusion of projects simply for political expediency.”
Yet the pattern repeats whichever party wins. After the 2014 election, the incoming government left its predecessor’s flagship projects in limbo. In 2020, the newly elected government said it would not prioritise the Shire–Zambezi waterway, a project meant to give Malawi a river route to the Indian Ocean. The administration of 2004–2012 had championed it; the 2014–2020 administration had not prioritised it. After the 2025 election, the incoming government began reviewing all projects started by its predecessor.
Each decision may have had its reasons. Together, they mean that long-term projects rarely survive a change of government intact. The record is not uniform: in 2021, the Director General of the National Planning Commission welcomed the government of the day “continuing with most of the development projects started off by previous political regimes.”
The national farm input subsidy, which sells fertiliser and seed to smallholder farmers at reduced prices, has likewise been restructured and renamed by successive governments.
Accountability for results is weak.
The National Planning Commission oversees delivery. The law that established it allows it to demand information but gives it no authority to compel ministries to deliver.
Malawi already uses performance contracts for public officials. Yet the government’s own MGDS III acknowledged that “there was no demand for information” from Cabinet or Parliament on their results.
The 2021 audit of COVID-19 emergency funds led to about 60 arrests. By late 2025, there had been no convictions, and the case files had reportedly never reached prosecutors. More than three years after Cyclone Freddy, the 2023 storm that left 676 people dead and 537 missing, there is still no published account of how relief funds were spent.
Budgets do not follow the plan.
Malawi 2063 states that no project should begin unless full funding is assured. In practice, according to the National Planning Commission and the Economics Association of Malawi, budgets have allocated only 44% of the funding MIP-1 required over its first five years. A 2018 IMF assessment found that new projects are often added to the budget at the expense of ongoing ones.
Foreign exchange shortages hold back many sectors.
The government holds the kwacha’s official exchange rate well above what it is worth on the open market. Dollars are consequently scarce at the official rate and cost far more on the unofficial “parallel” market. According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank Group’s private-sector arm, the gap between the two rates exceeded 150% in 2025.
Fuel, construction materials, contractor payments and electricity imports all depend on scarce foreign currency. Shortages are cited as a cause of delay in several of the projects discussed here, including the World Bank’s electricity connection project.
How Much Do Circumstances Explain?
The strongest counter-argument deserves serious consideration.
The shocks are real. Malawi has endured Cyclone Freddy, a severe drought in 2024 caused by El Niño—a recurring Pacific climate pattern that brings drought to southern Africa—and the COVID-19 pandemic. It faces a public debt burden the IMF has warned is unsustainable, and now major reductions in British and American aid.
Malawi has delivered when conditions allowed. The World Bank’s electricity connection project and the Lilongwe water project were both rated “Satisfactory”, though both were completed late.
Circumstances alone, however, do not account for the record:
- Countries with comparable constraints have made more progress. Rwanda is landlocked and started poorer. Ethiopia is landlocked and endured civil conflict. Bangladesh faces some of the world’s most severe climate risks.
- Available funds go unspent. Between a quarter and three-fifths of the development budget has gone unspent each year. Meanwhile, Shire Valley’s first phase spent almost its entire budget without irrigating land.
- Weak delivery deepens the impact of shocks. Vision 2020 warned in 1998 that Malawi “has no national disaster plan and one is urgently needed.” A quarter of a century later, when Cyclone Freddy struck, informal settlements had spread up Blantyre’s hillsides, where mud and landslides caused a higher death toll. When drought struck in 2024, the irrigation promised in plans for decades was still largely unbuilt.
Shocks are unavoidable. Whether they become disasters depends heavily on what has been built beforehand.
What Could Change the Outcome
“Political will” is often cited, but the phrase describes the problem without solving it. The evidence points to more specific steps:
- Protect priority projects across changes of government. A short list of national flagship projects—such as Shire Valley irrigation, Lilongwe’s water supply, the M1 (Malawi’s main north–south highway) and the Mpatamanga dam—could have their funding and timelines protected in law, allowing them to continue regardless of which party is in office.
- Apply the rule Malawi has already adopted. Malawi 2063 says no project should begin without assured funding. Enforcing that rule would mean completing existing projects before announcing new ones.
- Keep public project information current. Malawi already has a government infrastructure transparency portal, but its page for the M1 highway has not been updated since July 2022. Current progress and spending data for every capital project would let citizens and Parliament follow delivery.
- Give oversight real consequences. Performance contracts and audit recommendations already exist. Giving the Planning Commission authority to act on non-delivery, and requiring Parliament to review unresolved audit findings in public, would connect monitoring to accountability.
- Address the foreign exchange system. Unifying the official and market exchange rates is one of the most consistently repeated—and least implemented—recommendations in Malawi’s recent economic history. Until foreign currency is available, most major projects will continue to stall.
None of these ideas will surprise Malawians. Most have appeared in the country’s own documents.
As a Malawian, I find this record painful to read. But many of its sharpest warnings come from Malawi’s own institutions. The people inside the system already see the problem. That is where change can start.
Malawi 2063 is a serious and capable plan, as was Vision 2020. Malawians can describe precisely what development looks like. They do not need outsiders to explain it.
The question is whether the country can build institutions that carry a plan from one budget, one election and one government to the next, until the work is finished. For families waiting for clean water, reliable power and irrigated land, that is not an abstract question. It is the difference between a plan and a better life.
Sources & further reading
Primary documents used throughout:
- National Planning Commission: Review of Vision 2020 (2019), Malawi 2063, MIP-1 Annual Progress Report 2023/24, 2026/27 Budget Analysis
- Ministry of Finance, Economic and Fiscal Policy Statement 2026
- National Audit Office, Auditor General’s report on the Accounts of Government, FY2024/25 (earlier years on the National Audit Office site)
- World Bank project documents: Shire Valley Phase 1 review, Shire Valley Phase 2 financing paper, Blantyre water progress report
- Booth, Cammack et al., Drivers of Change and Development in Malawi, ODI (2006)
- International Finance Corporation (IFC), Malawi Country Private Sector Diagnostic (2021) and 2026 summary
- Afrobarometer, Malawi Round 10 Summary of Results (2024)
This is part 1 of The Implementation Gap, a series in 7 parts.