Malawi celebrate women’s crucial role in Africa’s development

Malawi is on Wednesday celebrating Mothers’ Day and the World Rural Women’s Day, occasions set aside to honour and give special attention and recognition to the tireless work women of Africa carry out to develop and care for Africans from the cradle to the presidency.

That’s how President Bingu wa Mutharika put it when he directed that from this year onwards, the local public holiday known as Mothers’ Day would be celebrated jointly on 15 October to coincide with the commemoration of the UN-designated World Rural Women’s Day.

Previuosly, Mothers’ Day in Malawi was commemorated on the Monday of the second week of the October.

Minister of Women and Child Development, Anna Kachikho, said in Lilongwe that women played a critical role in contributing to the socio-economic development of all countries.

"The contributions women make to the well being of both nations and families are great. Women, especially those from rural areas, play a very key role in the food production and food security of the country," she said.

According to her, in Africa rural women produce 80 percent of the food that is grown in the continent.

Much as women provided all that labour that enables the production of food in the localities, she observed, it was very disappointing to note that worldwide only two per cent of land was owned by the rural women.

She added that women only received one percent of all agriculture credit and five percent of agriculture extension resources