Yearbook 2016

Malawi. During the first months of the year, thousands of refugees from neighboring Mozambique sought refuge in Malawi as a consequence of the resumed fighting between the former rebel movement Renamo’s armed branch and government forces. According to the UNHCR, up to 10,000 people had fled across the border until mid-March.

In April, President Peter Mutharika issued disaster permits in the Malawi. According to thereligionfaqs, the reason was the drought that plagued the whole of southern Africa and caused food shortages in Malawi. The World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Food Assistance and Food Security Organization, made the assessment that the situation was severe in 23 of the 28 districts in which the country is divided.

Malawi Population 2016

According to countryaah, the current population of Malawi is 19,129,963. Authorities took action against the superstition that makes Malawi a life-threatening country to live in for people suffering from albinism. Here and in several other African countries there is a belief that body parts from people without pigments have magical properties and therefore are used by so-called witch doctors. This has led to people with albinism being mutilated and murdered. In June, a court issued a ban on all traditional healers and witch doctors, as well as the manufacture and sale of magic amulets in an attempt to put an end to the murder wave that has swept across Malawi in recent years. In addition, newspapers in the country were banned from publishing witch doctor ads.

In August, former Justice Minister Raphael Kasambara was sentenced to 13 years in prison for being involved in an assassination attempt on the then budget head of the Finance Ministry, Paul Mphwiyo. The assassination attempt was made in connection with a major corruption scandal revealed in 2013.

  • Abbreviation Finder: Check to see how the 3-letter abbreviation of MWI stands for the nation of Malawi in geography.

HUMAN AND ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

Population

In 1998 the number of residents was estimated at 10,346,000 units, the result of a decrease in the population growth rate (31 ‰ in the years 1990-98 against 37 ‰ in the previous five years). Although the difference between demographic and economic increases has almost disappeared, Malawi continues to remain among the poorest countries on earth and among those with the most modest social development. Essentially rural (city dwellers barely reach 15% of the total), the population is spread across the territory in a different way, between a sparsely populated North and a South that hosts about half of the total population in one third of the territory. The only real cities are Lilongwe and Blantyre, the current and former capital, with a population of 395,500 and 446,800 respectively. (1994).

A country poor in resources, very little industrialized, with a constantly passive trade balance and essentially dependent on foreign aid, Malawi has also experienced the problem of welcoming refugees – first from Mozambique, during the 1980s (about one million), and then from Rwanda – and above all that of the spread of AIDS, which would have caused about 130 in the country. 000 deaths in the decade 1985 – 95.

After a phase, between the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s, during which considerable progress had been made in agriculture and, in general, in economic productivity through modernization and liberalization, the consequences of an unfavorable meteorological situation and the withdrawal of international aid (as a form of pressure for respect for human rights in the country) caused an economic meltdown. Even in the early nineties, due to the recurrence of adverse climatic events, the population suffered from considerable food shortages, a situation that changed in the most favorable years. The strong dependence on natural factors has made it necessary to initiate structural reforms in the political and economic fields: among these, a land reform that aims at30 % of the productive economy of Malawi). Alongside the products used for local consumption, the agriculture of Malawi produces tobacco (grown in small farms) and tea (in the hands of large producers). The industrial base is limited, and the influx of foreign investment is hampered by low local market demand and modest export opportunities. The establishment of joint ventures, currently operating only in some agro-industrial sectors, is strongly encouraged ; since 1997 the steel producing company has been privatized.