A top official from the National Planning Commission (NPC) has promised to accommodate input of ordinary citizens in the country when crafting a new vision for 2063. These sentiments came from Director General for NPC Dr. Thomas Munthali at a Conference on National Envisioning which was hosted by Council for Non-Governmental Organisations in Malawi – CONGOMA. This function was held on 5 December, 2019 at Lilongwe hotel in Lilongwe where CSOs across Malawi had gathered to share their contributions towards the new vision.

Munthali said that as Malawi is in the process of formulating the successor to Vision 2020, wider consultations would be helpful especially input from people at the grassroot level so that the country develops a vision that is reflective of what ordinary people want.

“As NPC, we are not going to be sitting in the offices and crafting a vision for the country but it is the people that are going to tell us what the Malawi they want to see in 2063 and proposing how they want to see a typical Malawian looking like at that point in time. As such those that work closely with the people at the grassroot are CSOs. We should really commend CONGOMA for doing this, they took the initiative and invited us to solicit the inputs from CSOs because at the end of the day, this is going to be a people’s vision.”, explained Dr. Munthali.

In his remarks, Dr. Munthali acknowledged the importance of having a vision as the country and following up its implementation.

“The Previous Vision 2020 was good but we did not set ourselves targets, our vision also lacked focus, and this time we need to move towards a more focused vision , the consultations we have had so far , are pointing to us to have an inclusive and self-reliant nation and this has to be confirmed by Malawians so when we do consultations out there, Malawians would tell us the best vision”, clarified Munthali.

Taking his turn, Programmes Manger for CONGOMA Mr. Simekinala Kaluzi said CSOs have a vital role to play in contributing ideas towards the new vision because CSOs represent a wider constituency of people from the grassroot.

“ As CSOs we have a big role to play and this is not the first time CONGOMA doing this process, so initially we had to look at what CSOs can do to contribute towards the National Envisioning process, and we know we are representing communities at different levels, so we are acting as a bridge between the communities and the various stakeholders at the National Level.  If we have views of the citizens from the communities then those views are going to be part of the National Visioning process, and in that regard it will be bottom up approach unlike in the past where what was found in the National Plans was what technocrats thought, but this time we will be bringing views from the grassroot to National level”, highlighted Kaluzi.

The whole consultation process among NGOs in the envisioning process is being shouldered by CONGOMA with financial support from IM Swedish Development Partner.  CONGOMA is implementing a five-year project in collaboration with IM Swedish Development Partner where among other things the project seeks to enhance civic participation in the formulation of the successor vision to 2020.