President unveils Covid-19 Socio-Economic Recovery Plan in Year-end Address
22 December 2021
On Tuesday 21st December, President Lazarus Chakwera gave a year-end national address outlining his government’s Covid-19 Socio-Economic Recovery Plan (SERP). The Plan aims to stimulate strategic parts of the economy with various interventions estimated at over half a trillion Kwacha over the next two years, to assist the delivery of Malawi’s Vision 2063 First 10-year Implementation Plan (MIP-1). In his address the President called on development partners and non-state actors to respond to the interventions in this plan in ways that complement it.
In keeping with our focus on Malawi-led development, we encourage members to read the address and the Socio-Economic Recovery Plan and look to build their work around these.
Some of the specific measures to re-invigorate production and productivity in the economy by both state and private sector actors as defined within the five focus areas of the SERP include:
- Intensified efforts in increasing the proportion of the population that is vaccinated.
- Infrastructure investments to stimulate long-term public and private investments, as well as create employment.
- Intensified digitalisation.
- Sustaining and scaling-up the fiscal and monetary stimulants towards the productive sectors of the economy especially those most affected by COVID-19 such as hospitality industry and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
- Administering safety nets especially those that are productivity-enhancing.
The President ended his address saying:
“I know we are living in uncertain and turbulent times, times in which every nation and economy on earth has suffered heavy losses. But that does not mean we should give in to despair, nor entertain those whose interest is to turn us against each other. A time of loss is not a time for politics. This is a time to stand together as one nation behind a plan to recover what we have lost, and a time to sow and water our seeds, enduring the lean season upon us because we know that our harvest is coming. And when that harvest comes, we will rejoice in it together while the world looks on and says, look what the Lord has done in Malawi! God is working, and so must we. I wish you all a Happy and Covid-free Christmas and New Year. God bless you and God bless Malawi.”
