Search Results for: Malawi

Malawi, one the world’s largest producer of burley leaf tobacco, is making significant efforts to reduce child labour within its tobacco left sector, but the problem is still endemic.

A key sensitivity is that Malawi’s economy heavily relies on tobacco leaf, which contributes to 52% of the total export value for the country, according to the Malawi ministry of finance 2020 annual economic report.…

Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera has been honoured as a ‘Champion of Higher Education in Africa’ by the Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM).

This consortium of 129 African universities within 38 countries said it decided to honour President Chakwera for his government’s efforts in promoting inclusive higher education in Malawi and in other African countries.…

The delinking of Malawi’s oldest institution of higher learning, the University of Malawi (UNIMA) into three separate universities has been accomplished, 11 years after former President Bingu wa Mutharika mooted the idea to UNIMA Council in 2009.

Mutharika only managed to delink Bunda College in 2011 to create Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) before his death in 2012 and his successor President Joyce Banda shelved the process.…

Mozambique’s tobacco leaf and processing sector is facing tough times. Cyclones such as this January’s Eloise, and Idai in 2019 have wreaked significant damage on tobacco plantations. Covid-19 has caused processing disruption and harmed legitimate distribution, encouraging an increase in black market cigarette sales.…

Malawi’s higher education may have suffered through Covid-19, but the pandemic has encouraged efforts to build online and distance learning (ODL) operating through special satellite centres run by universities and colleges.

Out of Malawi’s 19 tertiary institutions, five have made serious progress in such services, with Mzuzu University, in northern Malawi, leading the way, pioneering ODL in 2006, when the institution was just eight years old.…

The Malawi government has ordered the ruling council of the University of Malawi (UNIMA) to push ahead with delinking its constituent colleges, despite the project being suspended on January 20.

The council voted on that day to suspend the creation of independent universities from its colleges, claiming that a 2017 decision authorising the process was not in line with Malawi law at the time and hence ‘ultra vires’.…

A University of Malawi (UNIMA) Council’s decision to suspend a planned delinking of the university’s constituent colleges into independent universities has generated fears that the plan – hatched over six years ago – will ultimately be frustrated. After a consultative process President Lazarus Chakwera, last November, last year had given assent to a final bill on the delinking of UNIMA.…

Malawi universities and colleges have been closed for three weeks from Monday January 18, following a second wave of Covid-19 that has taken a heavy toll, with daily reports of increasing infections and deaths.

This includes two cabinet ministers who died earlier this month – public works minister Sidik Mia and local government minister Lingson Belekanyama.…

The Internet has hardly developed a reputation for honesty, but blockchain technologies where different computers log transactions in separate units, connected to a web of entries (blocks), are tough to falsify.

Of course, blockchain’s most high-profile use has been to underpin the reliability of cryptocurrencies, but the principle of this unchangeable and autonomous web of ledgers has so many potential uses – the tobacco sector has been exploring them.…

Malawi is set to reopen its universities and colleges on September 7, with a phased re-launch, the country’s new education minister Agnes Nyalonje has announced in the capital Lilongwe, ending a six-month lockdown forced by Covid-19. The first students to be readmitted physically to Malawi’s higher education facilities will be students who are approaching final examinations, with other students being readmitted from September 28, although the exact timetable will need to be approved case-by-case by the education ministry.…