Economics

In 2025, Malawi finds itself once again at a fiscal crossroads, with a K8.05 trillion national budget unveiled — promising economic stabilization, infrastructure development, and social protection. Yet, beneath the surface of those ambitions lies a hard truth we have avoided for decades: Malawi never had an economy to begin with.

A few days ago, I was invited to deliver a keynote at the Academic & Leadership Conference, to be hosted on the 15th of March, 2025 at my postgrad alma mater, the Malawi University of Science and Technology. As I am currently preparing on what to say, I find myself thinking: How do I explain Malawi 2063 — not just as a policy document, but as a lived reality we are all responsible for building?

For so long, Malawi has sat quietly in the center of the storm — untouched not by design, but by circumstance. Unlike so many of our neighbors, we have never fought wars over land, resources, or identity. There was no great battle for Malawi, because for decades, there was no perceived wealth worth fighting over. And in that quiet existence, something dangerous settled into our national psyche — the belief that survival itself was enough.