Minister of Foreign Affairs, George Chaponda, has reaffirmed Malawi’s commitment to the Copenhagen Declaration focusing on its main pillars of poverty eradication, employment creation, and social integration.
Speaking at the Second World Summit for Social Development in Qatar, Chaponda said in implementing the country’s vision, Malawi has developed a National Social Protection Policy whose goal is to improve the lives of vulnerable people living on less than 3 Dollars a day.
“These living conditions are aggravated by climate shocks such as natural disasters. Therefore, Malawi has scaled up transformative and climate-resilience programs. One of them is the Social Cash Transfer Program. The mode of disbursement uses a digital payment system, which improves transparency and accountability. In spite of these efforts, inflation, climate disasters, and global shocks persistently undermine progress every year.
“Social development requires strong investment in human capital. Increasing access to education is one way of achieving this goal. As a result, Malawi introduced free primary education three decades ago.
“This year, Malawi has introduced free secondary school education. We want every child to complete secondary education. But there is no point in educating a generation without creating job opportunities. Therefore, we have initiated a number of measures to create decent jobs for the Youth.
“It must be noted that 70 percent of Malawi’s population are the Youth. We are therefore focusing on developing skills for the Youth. We want to create a skilled labor market while developing the spirit of self-dependency in the Youth. We believe in teaching the Youth to learn how to fish instead of giving them fish. Skills development turns the Youth from being job seekers to becoming job creators.
“As a country, we set out to build community colleges in every part of the country as the core of the skills development program. It is skills development that sets foundations of industrialization. However, skills development needs investment if it is to play its critical role.
“Malawi is among Pathfinder Countries under the UN Global Accelerator on Decent Jobs and Social Protection. This program focuses on productive sectors that include agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and tourism. We need to invest in the youth for them to productively participate in these national building sectors,” he said.
Chaponda further said Malawi believes in social integration through empowerment of women, youth, and persons with disability.
“Empowering girls includes ending child marriages. We are registering gains as Malawi’s National Strategy on Ending Child Marriage has reduced child marriage rates from 42 to 38 percent.
“Empowering girls today is empowering women in the next generation. But women need to be given space to participate in decision making. The Malawi Government remains committed to achieving the ratio principle of including women in decision making positions.
“Malawi has instruments for empowering persons living with disability, women and the elderly. These instruments include the Persons with Disabilities Act; the Older Persons Act, and the Gender Equality Act.
“We have learnt that sustained investment in social protection, education, and empowering women, youth and persons with disability can transform society,” he said.
