News

The Government of Malawi has risen to the global challenge and submitted a series of ambitious targets ahead of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Nairobi in November 2019.

AFIDEP facilitated a successful National Symposium on Population and Development on 30th October 2019 in Lilongwe, Malawi, to promote discussion on the content of National Commitments. The event was attended by government, civil society organisations (CSOs) and other development partners and stakeholders. Following this, Malawi’s Commitments were finalised and agreed upon by the Ministry of Health and Population. They can now be seen on the Nairobi Summit website (https://www.nairobisummiticpd.org/commitments, search term: “Malawi”).

In preparing for the Symposium, AFIDEP strived to synthesise the evidence and highlight the “unfinished agenda” where efforts should be intensified. AFIDEP’s influence is apparent in many key Commitments, by 2030 Malawi will:

• reduce Maternal Mortality by 75% (from 439 to 110).
• provide 12 years of free education to every child, necessitating a rise in rates of secondary school enrolment to 100% from the current level of 18%.
• eliminate marriage under age 18.
• provide youth-friendly SRH services and reduce the unmet contraceptive need for unmarried young people to below 11% (from 52%)

We congratulate the Government of Malawi on their aspiration for the future and commit ourselves to ensure that these promises become a reality.

The commitments:

• Malawi commits to continue to lower the maternal mortality ratio to 110 per 100,000 live births by 2030.
• Malawi commits to include 30% representation of youth in decision making bodies.
• Malawi commits to providing 12 years of free quality education for every child.
• Malawi will end child marriage by 2030.
• Malawi commits to ensuring all humanitarian responses incorporate sexual and reproductive health and rights.
• Malawi commits to achieve 100% of the service points delivering sexual and reproductive health and rights services are youth friendly.
• Malawi commits to fully digitalization of population data collection systems by 2030.
• Malawi commits to reduce unmet needs for all women to below 11% by 2030
• Malawi commits to increase budgetary allocation to reproductive maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health to 30% by 2030
• Malawi commits to ending early and unintended pregnancy