Malawi, like most African countries, faces serious governance and
development challenges. While most of these challenges are uniquely Malawian,
they are also symptomatic of a general continental trend.1 These challenges
manifest themselves in high levels of illiteracy, prevalence of disease, poverty
and poor infrastructure. The multiplicity of the challenges that Malawi and,
arguably, most African countries contend with diminishes the state’s capacity
to effectively realise human rights. This is often to the detriment of rights
classified as social, economic and cultural (in this contribution short-handedly
referred to as socio-economic rights). This is largely because it is sometimes
argued that socio-economic rights require massive expenditure outlays by the
state and that priority should thus be given to civil and political rights which
do not require such outlays.