Overview : In 2021, the National Planning Commission (NPC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, supported by the United National Development Program (UNDP) piloted the Foresight and Anticipatory Governance project in Malawi. The project seeks to transform Malawi’s governance space by introducing and institutionalizing new and innovative ways of planning that will make Malawi timely respond to uncertainties in the development landscape to make it on course to achieving its medium-term goals and the vision. Specifically, the project seeks to build the foresight planning capability within Government, improve capacity coordination of development programs implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The project is premised on the understanding that in many developed countries, strategic foresight has added value to long term planning tools in strategic policy making, given its interdisciplinary nature. The 21st Century Development Challenges are often 'wicked' and multifaceted, as such there is no one single solution to address such development challenges. To take a case in point, the current Coronavirus pandemic and the recent floods in the country and other parts of Europe and South America have heavily increased the burden of governments globally. Recognizing multi-sectoral expertise and future thinking/scenarios to address development challenges can be an effective engine for accelerating learning and contributing to policy making. Malawi’s development pursuit is guided by the vision of an inclusively wealthy and self-reliant nation by 2063. The vision, (MW2063) is anchored by three pillars namely, Agriculture Productivity and Commercialization, Industrialization (including mining) and Urbanization (Including Tourism). Seven enablers support these pillars: Mindset Change, Effective Governance Systems and Institutions, Enhanced Public Sector Performance, Economic Infrastructure, Human Capital Development, Private Sector Dynamism and Environmental Sustainability. Operationalization of the vision is phased in 10-year periods, the first of which runs from 2021 to 2030, christened the Malawi 2063 First 10-Year Implementation Plan (MIP-1). The plan pursues two key milestones: Graduate Malawi to a lower middle-income country by 2030 and meet most of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by the same period. The MIP-1 outlines quick-wins, game changer interventions and flagship projects to be implemented for Malawi to achieve these milestones. |