Safe water provision is one of Malawi Government's priorities; however, it is struggling to provide this essential commodity.
Women fetching dirty water
According to a report by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development 20 percent of Malawi’s 13 million people live in urban areas with the urban population expected to double between 2010 and 2030 and safe water provision will be a great challenge.
The research report also indicated that less than one-tenth of Malawi’s urban population live in homes connected to sewers.
In a survey of 1,178 households conducted in May and June last year, it found that water and sanitation remained “woefully inadequate” in the nine settlements across Malawi’s three biggest cities – Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu.
The report published also said that only one in four of the households polled had their own individual water connections.
Half of them relied on water kiosks – with some families in Malawi ranked 162 out of 179 on U.N. human development index buying just one bucket of water a week.
Not only were the kiosks open for an average six hours a day, but interruptions to supply were common, the report said.
To compensate, many families were taking water from potentially contaminated sources such as shallow wells and rivers posing a health risk with cholera and diarrhoea occurring frequently.
“Regular, safe, affordable supplies of water and good provision for toilets are such an obvious part of development, and so central to better health,” said Mtafu Manda, director of Alma Consultancy, a private planning and environmental management practice, who carried out the interviews.
“They are also central to livelihoods and for saving time, meaning no longer having to walk long distances or endure long queues to get water or use a communal toilet,” Manda said in a statement.
The poor state of clean, plentiful water supply and sanitation means Malawi is in danger of missing United Nations targets to raise living standards in impoverished countries.
Governments' commitment
Malawi’s Irrigation and Water Development Minister, Ritchie Biziwick Muheya said government is committed to ensuring that people in the country have access to potable water amidst a report by a research group that Malawi is failing UN targets on water and sanitation.
“My ministry with the help of the African Development Bank and Africa Catalytic Growth Fund will make sure people in rural and peri-urban areas have access to clean and safe water,” Muheya told journalists.
The U.N. Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce poverty were agreed in 2000 and include a target to halve the population without long-term access to water and sanitation by 2015.
Muheya however, said through the National Water Development Programme, government would ensure that people across the country had access to clean and safe water to facilitate development in the country, as people would not be affected by water borne diseases.
“Although my ministry and the water boards are facing a lot of challenges in their quest to provide the nation safe water, government is still committed to prioritize provision of safe water to as many people as possible throughout the country,” he said.
Monday, 24 August 2009
Capital principal honours college leaders in Malawi
A COLLEGE principal from the Capital has joined teachers in Malawi who have graduated from leadership programmes designed by Scottish academics.
Brian Lister, from Stevenson College, arrived with Scottish teachers to congratulate the Malawian staff in the country's capital city, Lilongwe.
They had graduated from two leadership and management programmes designed by Scotland's Colleges and delivered in Malawi over the past 18 months.
Dr Craig Thomson, chairman of Scotland's Colleges International, said: "Successful colleges need leaders who are committed to their own learning and are willing to put in the extra effort required to learn and develop. The graduates from these programmes have proved more than willing to make this commitment."
The project was formally funded by the Scottish Government, but participating Scottish colleges have given more than £100,000 "in kind" by donating staff time.
Brian Lister, from Stevenson College, arrived with Scottish teachers to congratulate the Malawian staff in the country's capital city, Lilongwe.
They had graduated from two leadership and management programmes designed by Scotland's Colleges and delivered in Malawi over the past 18 months.
Dr Craig Thomson, chairman of Scotland's Colleges International, said: "Successful colleges need leaders who are committed to their own learning and are willing to put in the extra effort required to learn and develop. The graduates from these programmes have proved more than willing to make this commitment."
The project was formally funded by the Scottish Government, but participating Scottish colleges have given more than £100,000 "in kind" by donating staff time.
Malawi Tobacco Traded 18% Below State Price Last Week (Update1)
Bloomberg) -- The price of tobacco in Malawi, Africa’s second-largest producer of the burley variety, traded 18 percent below the government-mandated price of $2.15 last week, said Auction Holdings Ltd., which manages the country’s auction floors.
The leaf sold at an average $1.77 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) during the week ended Aug. 21, Auction Holdings said in a weekly sales report published in the Daily Times newspaper today. Since the market opened on March 16, tobacco has sold for an average of $1.72, it said.
Malawi earned $16.7 million during the week, selling 8.5 million kilograms of the leaf, Auction Holdings added. The southern African nation started setting minimum prices for the various grades of tobacco two years ago after it accused merchants of putting farmers out of business. Dealers denied that they underpaid farmers.
Malawi relies on sales of the leaf for 60 percent of its export earnings. President Bingu wa Mutharika on April 6 threatened to deport buyers of the leaf if prices don’t improve.
The leaf sold at an average $1.77 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) during the week ended Aug. 21, Auction Holdings said in a weekly sales report published in the Daily Times newspaper today. Since the market opened on March 16, tobacco has sold for an average of $1.72, it said.
Malawi earned $16.7 million during the week, selling 8.5 million kilograms of the leaf, Auction Holdings added. The southern African nation started setting minimum prices for the various grades of tobacco two years ago after it accused merchants of putting farmers out of business. Dealers denied that they underpaid farmers.
Malawi relies on sales of the leaf for 60 percent of its export earnings. President Bingu wa Mutharika on April 6 threatened to deport buyers of the leaf if prices don’t improve.
Malawi child tobacco workers exposed to nicotine
BLANTYRE, Malawi — Young tobacco pickers in this southern African country are exposed to “extremely high levels of nicotine poisoning,” a London-based children’s rights organization said in a report released Monday.
“As the tobacco industry continues to shift its production to developing countries, more vulnerable children are being exposed to these hazardous working conditions,” said a report by Plan International. “It is estimated that over 78,000 children work on tobacco estates across Malawi, some up to 12 hours a day, many for less than 1.7 cents an hour and without protective clothing.”
The report, entitled “Hard work, little pay and long hours,” asserts that child laborers, some as young as five, suffer severe symptoms from absorbing “up to 54 milligrams a day of dissolved nicotine through their skin”, the equivalent of an average of 50 cigarettes a day.
MacDonald Mumba, a Plan International official in Malawi, acknowledged there had been no medical tests on the children but he said “physical signs on the children resemble tobacco sickness.”
Mumba said it was unrealistic for Plan International to support a ban on children working in the tobacco industry because poverty forces children to work.
“We are appealing to employers to buy protective wear for these children to reduce exposure to nicotine, which is harmful,” he said.
Labor Minister Yunus Mussa told The Associated Press the government was reviewing the Employment Act.
“Current laws guiding the employment of children do not prescribe stiff penalties to those caught abusing children but we are consulting to make them stronger,” he said.
The children sampled in the report exhibited common symptoms of nicotine poisoning, including severe headaches, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, coughing and breathlessness, the report said.
“Sometimes it feels like you don’t have enough breath, you don’t have enough oxygen,” an unnamed child in the tobacco heartland of Kasungu, central Malawi, was quoted as saying in the report. “You reach a point where you cannot breathe because of the pain in your chest. Then the blood comes when you vomit. At the end, most of this dies and then you remain with a headache.”
Neal Benowitz, Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Biopharmaceutical Sciences at University of California, San Francisco said, “Numerous animal studies have shown that administration of nicotine during infancy and adolescence produces long-lasting changes in brain structure and function, as well as behavioral changes that are not seen when nicotine is administered to adults.”
Tobacco is an important cash crop in Malawi, generating 75 percent of foreign exchange income. Over 80 percent of Malawians are directly or indirectly employed by the tobacco industry, which contributes up to 23 percent of all tax income and up to 30 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
Companies such as Philip Morris International Inc. said they do not own farms in Malawi, but they purchase tobacco from suppliers in the country.
“We require our tobacco leaf suppliers to sign a letter in accordance with which suppliers shall not employ any person who is younger than the age of 15 or the applicable minimum employment age or mandatory schooling age, whichever is higher,” Anne Edwards, spokeswoman for the company said.
“Philip Morris International strongly opposes any form of child labor in tobacco and other industries and works extensively with its leaf suppliers as well as the Eliminate Child Labor in Tobacco (ECLT) Foundation to reduce child labor in the tobacco sector,” Edwards said in a statement e-mailed to the AP.
British American Tobacco PLC said it buys about 5 percent of Malawi’s annual tobacco crop but does not employ children.
“As the tobacco industry continues to shift its production to developing countries, more vulnerable children are being exposed to these hazardous working conditions,” said a report by Plan International. “It is estimated that over 78,000 children work on tobacco estates across Malawi, some up to 12 hours a day, many for less than 1.7 cents an hour and without protective clothing.”
The report, entitled “Hard work, little pay and long hours,” asserts that child laborers, some as young as five, suffer severe symptoms from absorbing “up to 54 milligrams a day of dissolved nicotine through their skin”, the equivalent of an average of 50 cigarettes a day.
MacDonald Mumba, a Plan International official in Malawi, acknowledged there had been no medical tests on the children but he said “physical signs on the children resemble tobacco sickness.”
Mumba said it was unrealistic for Plan International to support a ban on children working in the tobacco industry because poverty forces children to work.
“We are appealing to employers to buy protective wear for these children to reduce exposure to nicotine, which is harmful,” he said.
Labor Minister Yunus Mussa told The Associated Press the government was reviewing the Employment Act.
“Current laws guiding the employment of children do not prescribe stiff penalties to those caught abusing children but we are consulting to make them stronger,” he said.
The children sampled in the report exhibited common symptoms of nicotine poisoning, including severe headaches, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, coughing and breathlessness, the report said.
“Sometimes it feels like you don’t have enough breath, you don’t have enough oxygen,” an unnamed child in the tobacco heartland of Kasungu, central Malawi, was quoted as saying in the report. “You reach a point where you cannot breathe because of the pain in your chest. Then the blood comes when you vomit. At the end, most of this dies and then you remain with a headache.”
Neal Benowitz, Professor of Medicine, Psychiatry and Biopharmaceutical Sciences at University of California, San Francisco said, “Numerous animal studies have shown that administration of nicotine during infancy and adolescence produces long-lasting changes in brain structure and function, as well as behavioral changes that are not seen when nicotine is administered to adults.”
Tobacco is an important cash crop in Malawi, generating 75 percent of foreign exchange income. Over 80 percent of Malawians are directly or indirectly employed by the tobacco industry, which contributes up to 23 percent of all tax income and up to 30 percent of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.
Companies such as Philip Morris International Inc. said they do not own farms in Malawi, but they purchase tobacco from suppliers in the country.
“We require our tobacco leaf suppliers to sign a letter in accordance with which suppliers shall not employ any person who is younger than the age of 15 or the applicable minimum employment age or mandatory schooling age, whichever is higher,” Anne Edwards, spokeswoman for the company said.
“Philip Morris International strongly opposes any form of child labor in tobacco and other industries and works extensively with its leaf suppliers as well as the Eliminate Child Labor in Tobacco (ECLT) Foundation to reduce child labor in the tobacco sector,” Edwards said in a statement e-mailed to the AP.
British American Tobacco PLC said it buys about 5 percent of Malawi’s annual tobacco crop but does not employ children.
Volunteer group is delivering promise
ALBANY- For two decades, a group of volunteers based in Illinois have been "delivering the promise" of clean water to residents in Africa.
Dougherty Rotary Club members got a firsthand look on what their mission entails recently.
Volunteers with Marion Medical Mission work directly with residents of southern Africa in constructing shallow wells in various villages in the region. The mission supplies the cement, pipe, pump, skilled labor and training - the residents of the village take care of the rest.
"The one thing we have plenty of in Africa is hard working people," said Harry Jones, a mission volunteer from Thomasville.
Marion Medical Mission's goal this year is to build 2,000 wells to provide 400,000 of the poor in Africa with a sustainable source of safe drinking water.
"We are faithful, we believe it will come," said Jones, who made his first missionary trip in 2006. "(The wells) just come together; it's miraculous."
Thirty-five volunteers are expected to assist in well construction this fall as part of the mission by paying their own way. The first day in the region is spent training with field work beginning the next day.
A decent amount of work has been done toward getting clean water to those that need it, but Jones said the need is far from fulfilled.
"We have decades of work ahead of us," he said.
All of the funds go toward construction of the wells. The cost for the materials to build a well is roughly $350. The primary focus has been in Malawi, but the missionary has extended to other areas.
The individual villages request the wells, after which the land is surveyed to find a usable spot for construction. The wells run about 10 to 30 feet deep.
The wells can only be effectively built at the end of the dry season, giving only two months for construction. In 2008, 1,727 wells were built before the rains came. This year, trips will be made to Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia from Sept. 18 to Oct. 12 and Oct. 9 to Nov. 2.
Marion Medical Mission started in the 1980s with a group of volunteers from a church in Marion, Ill. originally focused on the famine in Ethiopia. Their missionary eventually moved to Malawi. The group now has volunteers from 20 to 30 states.
"Anyone can be involved," Jones said. "If you want to show love for your neighbors, help them out."
For more information, visit www.marionmedical.org.
Dougherty Rotary Club members got a firsthand look on what their mission entails recently.
Volunteers with Marion Medical Mission work directly with residents of southern Africa in constructing shallow wells in various villages in the region. The mission supplies the cement, pipe, pump, skilled labor and training - the residents of the village take care of the rest.
"The one thing we have plenty of in Africa is hard working people," said Harry Jones, a mission volunteer from Thomasville.
Marion Medical Mission's goal this year is to build 2,000 wells to provide 400,000 of the poor in Africa with a sustainable source of safe drinking water.
"We are faithful, we believe it will come," said Jones, who made his first missionary trip in 2006. "(The wells) just come together; it's miraculous."
Thirty-five volunteers are expected to assist in well construction this fall as part of the mission by paying their own way. The first day in the region is spent training with field work beginning the next day.
A decent amount of work has been done toward getting clean water to those that need it, but Jones said the need is far from fulfilled.
"We have decades of work ahead of us," he said.
All of the funds go toward construction of the wells. The cost for the materials to build a well is roughly $350. The primary focus has been in Malawi, but the missionary has extended to other areas.
The individual villages request the wells, after which the land is surveyed to find a usable spot for construction. The wells run about 10 to 30 feet deep.
The wells can only be effectively built at the end of the dry season, giving only two months for construction. In 2008, 1,727 wells were built before the rains came. This year, trips will be made to Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia from Sept. 18 to Oct. 12 and Oct. 9 to Nov. 2.
Marion Medical Mission started in the 1980s with a group of volunteers from a church in Marion, Ill. originally focused on the famine in Ethiopia. Their missionary eventually moved to Malawi. The group now has volunteers from 20 to 30 states.
"Anyone can be involved," Jones said. "If you want to show love for your neighbors, help them out."
For more information, visit www.marionmedical.org.
Malawi's child tobacco pickers 'being poisoned by nicotine'
Children in Malawi who are forced to work as tobacco pickers are exposed to nicotine poisoning equivalent to smoking 50 cigarettes a day, an investigation has found.
Child labourers as young as five are suffering severe health problems from a daily skin absorption of up to 54 milligrams of dissolved nicotine, according to the international children's organisation Plan.
Malawian tobacco is found in the blend of almost every cigarette smoked in the west. The low-grade, high-nicotine tobacco is often used as a filler by manufacturers, reflecting a long-term global shift in production.
Tobacco farms in America declined by 89% between 1954 and 2002. Three-quarters of production has migrated to developing countries, with Malawi the world's fifth biggest producer. Seventy per cent of its export income comes from tobacco and the country is economically dependent on it.
Plan cites research showing that Malawi has the highest incidence of child labour in southern Africa, with 88.9% of five to 14-year-olds working in the agricultural sector. It is estimated that more than 78,000 children work on tobacco estates – some up to 12 hours a day, many for less than 1p an hour and without protective clothing.
Plan's researchers invited 44 children from tobacco farms in three districts to take part in a series of workshops. They revealed a catalogue of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and spoke about the need to work to support themselves and their families and pay school fees.
The children reported common symptoms of green tobacco sickness (GTS), or nicotine poisoning, including severe headaches, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, coughing and breathlessness.
"Sometimes it feels like you don't have enough breath, you don't have enough oxygen," one child said. "You reach a point where you cannot breathe because of the pain in your chest. Then the blood comes when you vomit. At the end, most of this dies and then you remain with a headache."
GTS is a common hazard of workers coming into contact with tobacco leaves and absorbing nicotine through their skin, particularly when harvesting. It is made worse by humid and wet conditions, which are prevalent in Malawi, as residual moisture on the leaves helps nicotine to be absorbed quicker.
Everyday symptoms of GTS are more severe in children than adults as they have not built up a tolerance to nicotine through smoking and because of their physical size. There is a lack of research into the long-term effects of GTS in children, but experts believe that it could seriously impair their development.
Neal Benowitz, professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences at California University in San Francisco, said: "Numerous animal studies have shown that administration of nicotine during infancy and adolescence produces long-lasting changes in brain structure and function, as well as behavioural changes that are not seen when nicotine is administered to adults.
"The brain of a child or adolescent is particularly vulnerable to adverse neurobehavioural effects of nicotine exposure."
Plan called on Malawi's government to enforce existing child labour and protection laws and on plantations to provide safer, fairer working conditions for those children forced to work. It demanded that multinational tobacco companies scrutinise their suppliers far more closely and follow their own corporate responsibility guidelines.
Macdonald Mumba, Plan Malawi's child rights adviser, said: "This research shows that tobacco estates are exploiting and abusing children who have a right to a safe working environment.
"Plan is calling for better enforcement of child labour laws and harsher punishment for employers who break them. These children are risking their health for 11p a day."
Child labourers as young as five are suffering severe health problems from a daily skin absorption of up to 54 milligrams of dissolved nicotine, according to the international children's organisation Plan.
Malawian tobacco is found in the blend of almost every cigarette smoked in the west. The low-grade, high-nicotine tobacco is often used as a filler by manufacturers, reflecting a long-term global shift in production.
Tobacco farms in America declined by 89% between 1954 and 2002. Three-quarters of production has migrated to developing countries, with Malawi the world's fifth biggest producer. Seventy per cent of its export income comes from tobacco and the country is economically dependent on it.
Plan cites research showing that Malawi has the highest incidence of child labour in southern Africa, with 88.9% of five to 14-year-olds working in the agricultural sector. It is estimated that more than 78,000 children work on tobacco estates – some up to 12 hours a day, many for less than 1p an hour and without protective clothing.
Plan's researchers invited 44 children from tobacco farms in three districts to take part in a series of workshops. They revealed a catalogue of physical, sexual and emotional abuse and spoke about the need to work to support themselves and their families and pay school fees.
The children reported common symptoms of green tobacco sickness (GTS), or nicotine poisoning, including severe headaches, abdominal pain, muscle weakness, coughing and breathlessness.
"Sometimes it feels like you don't have enough breath, you don't have enough oxygen," one child said. "You reach a point where you cannot breathe because of the pain in your chest. Then the blood comes when you vomit. At the end, most of this dies and then you remain with a headache."
GTS is a common hazard of workers coming into contact with tobacco leaves and absorbing nicotine through their skin, particularly when harvesting. It is made worse by humid and wet conditions, which are prevalent in Malawi, as residual moisture on the leaves helps nicotine to be absorbed quicker.
Everyday symptoms of GTS are more severe in children than adults as they have not built up a tolerance to nicotine through smoking and because of their physical size. There is a lack of research into the long-term effects of GTS in children, but experts believe that it could seriously impair their development.
Neal Benowitz, professor of medicine, psychiatry and biopharmaceutical sciences at California University in San Francisco, said: "Numerous animal studies have shown that administration of nicotine during infancy and adolescence produces long-lasting changes in brain structure and function, as well as behavioural changes that are not seen when nicotine is administered to adults.
"The brain of a child or adolescent is particularly vulnerable to adverse neurobehavioural effects of nicotine exposure."
Plan called on Malawi's government to enforce existing child labour and protection laws and on plantations to provide safer, fairer working conditions for those children forced to work. It demanded that multinational tobacco companies scrutinise their suppliers far more closely and follow their own corporate responsibility guidelines.
Macdonald Mumba, Plan Malawi's child rights adviser, said: "This research shows that tobacco estates are exploiting and abusing children who have a right to a safe working environment.
"Plan is calling for better enforcement of child labour laws and harsher punishment for employers who break them. These children are risking their health for 11p a day."
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