Malawi’s urbanisation set at 5.2 percent annually

Malawi is one of the fastest urbanised countries in Africa, with an urbanisation rate of 5.2 percent per annum, UN Habitat Programme Director for Malawi, John Chome, said here Monday.

In addition, the country is fifth in Africa after Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Burundi and Eritrea, Chome said.

Speaking during the commemoration of World Habitat Day in the capital Lilongwe on Monday, he said the implication of this trend is that Malawi will soon face scarcity of basic services including land, housing, water, electricity, food and jobs, among others.

"Government and its stakeholders need to urgently come in to provide an urban population with basic services by investing in rural areas to reduce urban migration and also to give the urban population the basic needs," he said.

He said 70 percent of Malawians living in urban areas are underserved with the basic necessities from the government, thereby slowly forcing them to live in poor conditions accompanied by high levels of poverty.

Deputy Minister of Transport, Public Works and Housing Roy Comsy said his government had lined up a number of strategies in order to provide the urban population with the basic services, and at the same time, reduce migration to urban areas.

In addition, he said, his ministry had formulated a National Housing Plan to provide land, plots and housing to urban population.

He added that government, with the funding from various donors, was implementing a Rural Growth Centres project in selected districts of the country where infrastructure and integrated services will be provided to reduce urban migration.