The History of Development and Crisis in Malawi

Abstract

This chapter provides the context for understanding the evolution of development and crisis in Malawi. It begins with summarising Malawi’s geography, together with a brief historical overview of preindependence Malawi. It outlines Malawi’s difficulties and challenges after independence and documents the emergence of one-party rule and subsequent dictatorship under Malawi’s first President, Dr Hastings Kamuzu Banda. The factors underlying economic growth in the early years of independence, and the causes of the economic crisis at the end of the 1970s, are examined. This economic crisis led to the introduction of structural adjustment policies which failed to achieve their objective of a broad-based and sustained economic growth. As poverty became even more pervasive, combined with changes in the geopolitical situation, the first challenges to one-party rule appeared in the early 1990s and subsequently gathered momentum, leading to the Malawi’s first multi-party elections in May 1994. The chapter concludes by reviewing Malawi’s economic performance from 1994 to 2004, the structure of the economy, and the key challenges in relation to the nature and extent of poverty in Malawi today.