Malawi’s economy has of late experienced extreme volatility due to global
and domestic shocks and policy-programme downturns, resulting in an economic
meltdown and degradation in the quality of services in the social sector,
education and health being among the key services. The Covid-19 global
pandemic at the turn of 2020 and the Russia-Ukraine war in the first quarter
of 2022 have had negative ripple effects on the economy, which is evident in
the sluggish performance of productive sectors such as agriculture, tourism
and manufacturing. The most notable effects of the events have been supply-
chain disruptions in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors, which affected
access to farm implements and effective functioning of export markets
as well as delivery of tourism services. Locally, a series of tropical cyclones
experienced in the 2021/22 rainy season further weakened Malawi’s
socioeconomic position as majority of Malawians suffered livelihood losses
especially on farms, as well as infrastructure destruction (roads, housing,
markets), which ultimately slowed down economic activities in the country
due to low farm output, inaccessible markets points and services and poor
storage of agriculture produce because of damaged storage infrastructure.