Malawi will have a difficult time meeting its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, despite achieving improved food production, while rebuilding a battered economy against a background of high levels of poverty and maternal mortality.

"It would be wrong to conclude that Malawi will not achieve the MDGs come 2015," Information minister Patricia Kaliati told IRIN. "Looking at the performance of President Bingu wa Mutharika's government in the past three years in sectors such as agriculture, education and economic development, one is compelled to say that there are indications that we will achieve these goals."

Malawi has weathered the 2005 drought that left about five million people in need of food aid: the 2007 harvest of the staple food, maize, saw a 22 percent increase over last year's crop, and was 73 percent higher than the average for the past five years, according to government estimates.

Kaliati said one of the main reasons for the impressive results by the country's agricultural sector was the introduction of a successful fertiliser subsidy programme, which enabled poor households to buy farming inputs.

"Government has done very well in the fight against hunger. We have achieved remarkable goals when it comes to food security and will continue doing so, especially with the fertiliser subsidy programme," she said. Agriculture employs about 80 percent of the workforce and contributes about 80 percent of foreign exchange earnings.

Health sector

Sadly, the increasing success of the agricultural sector is not mirrored by the health sector, and government acknowledged in its Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) paper, the country's five-year plan, that health indicators were poor.

"For instance, for every 100,000 live births, 1,120 mothers die due to limited access to quality reproductive and health services. Infant mortality and child mortality are estimated at 76 and 133, respectively, per 1,000 live births, due to limited health services and malnutrition," the MGDS said.

The situation was complicated by the migration of health personnel to greener pastures in other countries, and the high prevalence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and acute respiratory infections. "Recent assessments have shown that there are more than 100,000 people per qualified physician," the paper said.

The HIV infection rate is estimated at 14.4 percent, with prevalence much higher in urban areas. According to Malawi's National AIDS Commission (NAC), a body mandated by the government to coordinate and mitigate the impact of the epidemic, more than half of new HIV infections occur in young people aged between 15 and 24, with young women far more likely to become infected than young men.

Malawi is struggling to reduce infant mortality from 76 per 1,000 live births to 60, bring the child mortality rate of 133 per 1,000 live births down to 90, and lower the maternal mortality rate by 50 percent from the current 984 deaths per 100,000 live births.

"We need to invest more in the sector so that we can address all these gaps affecting the health system. Sometimes it seems we have missed this in terms of priorities for this country," said Undule Mwakasungura, executive director of the Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation, a civil society organisation.

Although government had put a lot of effort in to HIV/AIDS education, he said, "It is time we refocused on people living with HIV/AIDS - apart from provision of drugs there is also need to provide them with good nutrition."

Education

The introduction of free primary school education in 1994 increased enrolment and reduced the gender gap between the far greater number of boys than girls at school. An equal ratio of boys and girls at primary school was achieved in 2004, although free education had exposed flaws in the system.

"We rushed into free primary education without looking at how we will control the quality, and how to motivate teachers. Unless we take drastic measures to address these shortfalls, the poor quality will continue to be part of us," Mwakasungura said.

Government said it planned to intensify teacher development this year, and provide incentives such as hardship allowances, especially for teachers working in rural areas.

David Mulyasanga, a retired teacher, told IRIN that "the hardship allowance will woo more people to join teaching, and to work in rural areas. In the past people shunned working in rural areas, but with such an allowance the number of teachers willing to work in such places will increase."

The fight against poverty

According to UNAIDS, more than three-quarters of Malawi's about 12 million people live on US$2 or less day. Mutharika vowed to tackle poverty on his accession to the presidency in 2004, and his policies have won the support of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which suspended funding in 2002 for alleged corruption by the administration of then president Bakili Muluzi.

"My government's strategic objective is to establish a sound foundation for sustainable economic growth and development," Mutharika said. His tough stance on corruption and fiscal discipline, and the political will to turn the economy around persuaded the international community to write off Malawi's external debt of hundreds of millions of dollars through the Highly Indebted Countries (HIPC) initiative.

Billy Banda, executive director of Malawi Watch, a non-governmental watchdog of political and economic governance, told IRIN, "There has been a misconception that political leaders should implement the MDGs. Unfortunately, politicians come and go but the governed remain the same, and it is in that context that we should not leave implementation to politicians alone."

With seven years remaining before the 2015 MDG deadline, government should strive to improve in the areas it had so far failed: the health sector, poverty reduction and training more teachers.

"Government's economic performance in the past three years shows that the country is on track," Banda said. "What is remaining is that those gains should trickle down to the poor," he said.