In a country such as Malawi, where the ramifications of HIV/Aids, perennial hunger and illiteracy are all too clear, one would expect that the United Nations’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) would be familiar to many people.
But the opposite was found in interviews conducted randomly among Malawians in the streets of the two major cities of Blantyre and Lilongwe. Indications are that many Malawians are ignorant of the MDGs and their significance.
Ephraim Munthali, a journalist at one of Malawi’s two dailies, says ignorance about the MDGs stems from them being “the preserve of technocrats and a selected few other people. When the MDGs are mentioned at public functions, very few people appreciate them.”
Cosmas Ntonongoli, a shopkeeper in Malawi’s administrative city of Lilongwe, concurs. “I heard that topic [MDGs] on the radio a while ago, but I have not heard it since. Does it matter?”
In Blantyre — the commercial hub — Judith Banda confesses that she has no idea what the MDGs are. She works as a receptionist at a driving school.
Put to her that the initiative includes a commitment by governments to reduce poverty by 2015, she responds that she is making her own plans to deal with being poor.
“For me, it does not matter whether or not the world has MDGs. I feel I am already playing my part. Apart from working here at the office, I buy and sell cloth from Zambia, and the money is making a big difference to my family.”
Role of the media
Rumbani Nyirenda, a lecturer at a private college in central Blantyre, blames the public’s poor knowledge of MDGs on the media. He says the media have failed to educate people on issues of national importance.
“The press writes about MDGs only when a minister, the president or some other big shot talks about them,” says Nyirenda.
Alabi Mbenje, a resident of Kawale 2, a township of Lilongwe, agrees with Nyirenda. “There is no initiative by the media to write about MDGs. All you like to publish is politics.”
The Malawi Chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) admits that the media’s efforts to sensitise people about the MDGs have been lacklustre. Innocent Chitosi, the national director, cites lack of communication by government and civil-society organisations that are running MDG programmes as the major stumbling block.
“Those in the forefront of MDG campaigns rarely inform the media fraternity about the significance of the goals,” Chitosi claims. Misa is an NGO that supports the development of the media through training and other initiatives.
Mavuto Bamusi, programme manager at the Malawi Economic Justice Network (MEJN), says the main problem with understanding MDGs is that the concept has not been localised in the Malawian context.
The MEJN, which lobbies for socio-economic rights, is in the process of translating the MDGs into Chichewa, the local language. “Translation will connect the MDGs as a concept with people on the ground. We are translating various MDG documents into Chichewa,” Bamusi points out.
Lack of progress
Activists fear that Malawi’s progress towards achieving the MDG targets has been slow in the six years since governments committed themselves to the goals.
“We are very far from achieving these targets. There are severe food shortages year in and year out. The average lifespan in Malawi has been cut by HIV/Aids,” says Ulemu Munthali, a member of the National Civil Society Taskforce on the MDGs.
The task force lobbies the government to come up with policies and projects that promote the achievement of the goals.
“The previous government did not fully prepare itself to achieve the targets. The current administration of Bingu wa Mutharika is eager, and getting our debt cancelled was a defining stage,” says Information Ministry spokesperson Patricia Kaliati.
She is referring to Malawi’s attainment of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) completion point in September last year, which led to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank cancelling the bulk of Malawi’s external debt, valued at $2,9-billion.
Debt cancellation to Malawi should free up scarce resources for improving health services, education and the country’s dilapidated road network.
Thanks to the debt deal, the central bank in Lilongwe has also embarked on a gradual programme to reduce interest rates, which the analysts say will go a long way to foster a culture of savings and investment.
Kaliati argues that the government cannot go it alone and needs support from the private sector.
Notable among companies is a pan-African mobile network operator that has since 2002 been donating books and other educational accessories such as blackboards and computers to needy schools as part of its corporate social responsibility programme. — IPS