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The Malawi Communications and Regulatory Authority (MACRA) recently released its ICT Status Report 2024. The report not only reveals the level of use and adoption of ICT services by Malawians, but also how ICTs are a key enabler of Agenda 2063. What is the report about and why is it important? Our correspondent Jonathan Safuli writes.
After a period of clarity, Malawi has been able to determine the direction in which it wants to develop.
In 2000, every Malawian had a clear idea of what the country would look like in 20 years. A carefully crafted development agenda, Vision 2020, was launched. It clearly stated that Malawi would achieve middle-income economy status by 2020, four years ago today.
The World Bank defines middle-income economies as those with a Gross National Income (GNI) per capita between $1,036 and $13,615. As of 2020, Malawi’s GNI per capita is $350.
Why do we fail?
These are among the questions that Dr. Thomas Munthali and his team at the National Planning Commission (NPC) need to answer as Malawi embarks on a new development agenda with a post-2020 vision.
“Vision 2020 has suffered setbacks because its core philosophy is to reduce poverty. Despite many interventions, these have failed to enable communities to become self-reliant and resilient in the face of disasters and global economic shocks,” said Montali.
He added that the country needed to move from poverty reduction to empowering communities to create wealth, self-reliance and resilience.
Driven by this vision, Malawi today redefined what it wants to achieve by 2063. This definition is contained in a document called Agenda 2063.
The plan was launched in 2022, with the Malawian people unanimously agreeing that by 2063, Malawi will become an inclusively prosperous, self-reliant, industrialized, upper-middle-income country that can basically meet its development needs.
The question, then, is: how can Malawi achieve its Agenda 2063?
Montali said that Agenda 2063 recognized several drivers in its 10-year implementation plan, but specifically pointed out that the development of information and communication technologies is a key driver for creating inclusive wealth.
“Through our research and observations, we believe and understand that having a strong ICT infrastructure with reliable and affordable services throughout the country can boost technology adoption and digital access,” he said.
Even the director general of the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (MACRA), Daud Suleman, agrees.
“Understanding the dynamics of ICT access and use is critical as Malawi embarks on the ambitious path outlined in Malawi 2063, which prioritizes ICT development as a catalyst for inclusive growth, job creation and poverty reduction,” he said.
He added that Agenda 2063 stressed the need to harness ICTs to transform key sectors such as tourism, agriculture, mining education, healthcare and governance, thereby improving the quality of life for all Malawians.
Of course, it is one thing to praise ICT as a driver for achieving Agenda 2063, but it is another thing to actually get ICT services off the ground and for Malawians to actually adopt and use them. We must understand that we cannot say that ICT is a driver for achieving Agenda 2063 without understanding the level of adoption and use of ICT services by Malawians.
To bridge these two extremes, Macra, in partnership with the National Statistics Office (NSO), released the results of a national survey on access to and use of information and communications technology (ICT) among households and individuals in Malawi.
According to the report, the National ICT Survey 2023 collects information on access and usage of various ICT services and products to measure the progress of ICT adoption in the country.
“Previously, surveys were conducted in 2019 and 2014 with the same scope. Specifically, the survey covered access to and use of radio, computers, television, telephones, mobile phones, the internet, e-commerce, postal services, digital financial services, cybersecurity, electrical and electronic waste management, and child online protection,” the report reads.
However, overall, the report clearly states that affordability of ICT services in the country remains a serious challenge, as evidenced by low adoption and usage rates.
Suleiman attributed the low adoption and usage of ICT services to a number of factors, including affordability of digital services and devices; digital divide, especially between urban and rural populations; ICT literacy levels; radio and ICT convergence; inclusive digital economy; and lack of a strategic approach to harnessing the power of ICTs.
Supplement: Main findings
- The household radio ownership rate is 42.4%, the personal radio ownership rate is 34.1%, and 57.2% of individuals listen to the radio.
- Nationwide, 10.9% of households own a television, and the individual viewing rate is 22.2%.
- 24.8% of households have a local TV decoder (Kiliye-Kiliye). 68.4% of households can watch local TV stations. Only 6.8% of households can watch pay TV services.
- The proportion of households owning a fully functional computer is 3.3%, and the proportion of individuals owning a computer is 2.9%.
- The proportion of individuals using postal services is 4.5%.
- The most common cybersecurity incidents: receiving a fraudulent call or text message requesting money or personal banking details (85.5%), followed by identity theft (33.4%) and receiving a fraudulent email requesting money or personal banking details (18.2%).
- The majority (85.3%) would not report the incidents they experienced.
- About 2% of children aged 9 to 17 use the Internet, and 23.2% of them have encountered Internet incidents that bothered or upset them. However, 46.1% would not report such incidents to anyone, while 20.5% would report them to their peers.
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