Category: Economy

The lean season in Malawi is never just a calendar phase. It is a lived experience — one that stretches households to the brink long before the next harvest arrives. This year, the pressure has been heavier.

For most Malawian households, maize prices are not abstract economic indicators. They determine how many meals are cooked; how large the portions are and whether other essentials must be sacrificed.

Malawi’s National Economic Recovery Plan (NERP) is unfolding in a moment of deep economic strain, rising public frustration, and heightened political sensitivity.

In the lush foothills of Mount Mulanje, where tea leaves once danced in the morning mist, silence now settles like dust.

Twenty-five years ago, Malawi’s tax system was a scattered patchwork — underfunded offices, paper records, porous borders, and chronic revenue leaks.