President Chakwera officially opens
National Development Conference
His Excellency the President of the Republic of Malawi, Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera, on Thursday August 27, 2020 officially opened the inaugural annual National Development Conference at the Bingu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Lilongwe with a call to Malawians to embrace a new resolve that should move national plans and dreams into reality.
Addressing the conference organized by the National Planning Commission (NPC) to engage various stakeholders on its findings from public consultations on the development of a successor to Vision 2020 as the next long term development plan for Malawi, President Chakwera said Malawi needs a new for a new kind of a citizen with a different way of thinking and culture to get things done.
He said all the beautiful development plans and policies Malawi keeps on coming up with mean nothing if all that is done is talk without action.
“Talk is cheap. Building a new Malawi is a task for our hands, not for our lips. For this reason, a gathering like this cannot just focus on the new kind of nation we must build for ourselves. We must alsofocus on the new kind of citizen we ourselves must be if we are ever going to build such a nation,” said the President.
He said his mission as Malawi’s new leader is to leverage the government in service to the people so that the citizens themselves have the capacity to build a new Malawi.
“My mission is to see the government move away from making citizens beggars to making citizens bigger. It is my expectation that this conference marks the beginning of that transformation,” said President Chakwera.
Speaking earlier, Vice President Right Honourable Dr. Saulos Klaus Chilima – in his capacity as Minister for Economic Planning and Development – observed that what was emerging from the envisioning consultations done by NPC was that Malawians are so expectant of a better Malawi that benefits all.
“Let me concur with what is emerging from the consultations that it is high time we went beyond political freedom that the country has been enjoying, to inclusive wealth creation and self-reliance if political freedom is to have real meaning in our people’s lives,” said the Vice President.
Dr Chilima also took the opportunity to explain the relationship between his ministry and the National Planning Commission, saying while the commission is“a permanent home for defining the country’s long and medium term development plans”, the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development will champion implementation of the plans and ensure that the relevant policy environment is in place to effectively deliver on the plans.
“The Commission and the Ministry will hence be like two sides of the same coin. My Ministry is steadfastly committed to offer necessary support to the NPC so that its designated mandates are fully accomplished,” said Dr. Chilima.
On his part, National Planning Commission chairperson, Professor Richard Mkandawire, said the National Development Conference will be an annual event where experts will come together to take stock and discuss how to accelerate agreed national development priorities with the participation, feedback and contributions from different stakeholders, including the general public.
He said the specific objective of the 2020 inaugural conference was to validate what is emerging as the new Vision and aspirations of all Malawians.
“The conference will discuss and agree on quick wins and transformative strategies that will operationalize the new Vision’s pillars and enablers in the shortest time possible,” said Prof Mkandawire.
The conference was held under the theme “Beyond Political Freedom to Inclusive Wealth Creation and Self-Reliance” and was held a hybrid of virtual and limited physical participation in fully compliance to COVID 19 measures as gazetted by the Minister of Health.
