National Planning Commission appeals for positive reporting on MW2063

National Planning Commission (NPC) has emphasized the need to take a leading role in dissemination information about Malawi’s long-term development blueprint – Malawi 2063 (MW2063).

NPC Director of Knowledge and Learning, Dr Joseph Nagoli, said active or passive participation of Malawians in the implementation of the MW2063 will depend on the messages that journalists will disseminate through their various media channels.

Nagoli made the remarks during a training workshop for journalists and editor, which took place at the Capital Hotel on Friday.

Komatsubara–The way journalists report on MW2063 can help change this country or destroy it altogether–Photo by Moses Nyirenda-Mana

During the workshop, the NPC Director of Knowledge and Learning took journalists through the Malawi Secondary Cities Plan and Motivation on Positive Media Reporting on Malawi.

He explained that Malawi has selected several places across the country to develop them as secondary cities which will be known for their particular economic activities such as agriculture, tourism, transport and trade among others.

Dr Nagoli further briefed the participants on MIP-1, hinting on progress made so far and key challenges amid its implementation process.

In his remarks, the Director of Information in the Ministry of Information and Digitalization, Chikumbutso Mtumodzi, said “you need to fully sensitise communities on these plans through success stories and positive reporting.”

“The MW2063 emphasizes on the spirit of hard work, patriotism, self-reliance, integrity and discipline,” said Mtumodzi, adding that if the citizens are well informed about government’s national development plans, which he said was the duty of journalists, the former would actively participate in the plans’ implementation process.

On his part, Director of Planning in the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development, John Banda, said since journalists play a big role in mindset change, they need to partner with government in implementing its development initiatives.

Banda pledged his ministry’s support to NPC, which is championing the MW2063 through the annual budgets and other forms of assistance.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) representative, Shigeki Komatsubara, under whose auspices the workshop was organised, touted journalists and the media as “capable of changing the country.”

Like the earlier speakers, Komatsubara urged the journalists to report positively on the “small but positive differences some Malawians are making in the country”, saying those small changes can change the whole country.

“You can change this country,” he told the journalists.

Malawi launched MW2063 on January 19, 2021. The development agenda aims to transform the country into a wealthy and self-reliant industrialised upper middle-income country by 2063 when Malawi will clock exactly 100 years since she attained her self-rule.

The First 10-year Implementation Plan aims at attaining lower middle-income status and realising Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

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