Of Poverty Amid Development

Total close of 61.7% of Malawi’s population are multidimensionally poor. The intensity of poverty is 54.6%, meaning that nationally poor people experience, on average, more than half of the weighted deprivations. According to the poverty projection based on GDP per capita growth, the share of people living with less than $2.15/day increased slightly from 70.1 percent to 72 percent between 2019 and 2023. Poverty is associated with substandard housing, hunger, homelessness, inadequate childcare, unsafe neighborhoods, and under-resourced schools.

Children can more easily get diseases and either die young or have poor physical and mental development as a result. Poverty limits the access children have to educational opportunities, especially early childhood development.

Chronic or prolonged stress, such as the stress experienced by those who live in extreme poverty, can negatively impact early brain development, potentially resulting in cognitive impairment and other long-term consequences for children. This effect is sometimes referred to as toxic stress.

Poverty quickly leads to malnutrition due to a lack of access to food which is detrimental for children who are growing. A child might experience stunting, which is when a child doesn’t grow properly as a result of disease, poor health and malnutrition. These effects are often irreversible.

In summary, the findings from behavioral studies indicate that SES disparities and poverty can adversely affect cognitive processes, such as language, executive function, attention, and memory. In addition, these findings suggest that specific brain regions are associated with these cognitive functions.

Poverty contributes to a lack of access to healthcare and immunisations, as well as to proper nutrition, leaving children vulnerable to mostly preventable illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and malaria. Malnutrition is responsible for 45 percent of all deaths in children aged under five.

Across the lifespan, residents of impoverished communities are at increased risk for mental illness, chronic disease, higher mortality, and lower life expectancy. The economic consequences of poverty are a lack of social mobility, problems with housing and homelessness, and a segregated society. Poverty can negatively impact health in a number of ways. Child poverty can have serious consequences on children’s education and development.

Finally, there are several community development programmes being implemented across the country. These include food security, irrigation, HIV/AIDS preventive and impact mitigation measures, infrastructural development, education, gender, human rights and democracy, health and capacity building. There are several community development programmes being implemented across the country. These include food security, irrigation, HIV/AIDS preventive and impact mitigation measures, infrastructural development, education, gender, human rights and democracy, health and capacity building.

Malawi 2063. The Malawi 2063 is a long term national multi sectoral vision of Malawi for the period 2020-2063. Its main objective is to transform Malawi into a youth-centric inclusive wealthy and self-reliant industrialized upper middle-income country.

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