The US$350.7 million to be invested in the energy sector through the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact is a welcome investment to several players in the country.

Objectives of the Malawi Compact include increasing investment and employment income by raising the profitability and productivity of enterprises, expanding access to electricity for Malawian people and businesses, and improving delivery of social services to the Malawian people.

Malawi’s economy mainly relies on agricultural production and players in this sector stand to benefit from the implementation of the Malawi Compact.

Speaking during an outreach forum organised soon after the Signing of the Malawi Compact in Lilongwe, National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM) Development Director , Betty Chinyamunyamu, said the Compact will go a long way in boosting agricultural development as the country is now looking at ways to diversify away from tobacco to other crops.

“With this Compact we believe that improving access to electricity in the rural areas is going to assist the farmers to add value and develop new industries in their areas so that they can sell processed products as opposed to just selling raw crops as they are doing at the moment”, said Chinyamunyamu.

Chinyamunyamu said Malawi has a lot of potential for value addition  using  crops such as groundnuts, soya beans and sunflower which can be processed into cooking oil and animal feed.

She said farmers will not diversify to other crops unless there is a guarantee that they will find good markets or add value and be able to earn high income as they do when they sell tobacco.

She also said expanding access to electricity for the Malawian people will translate to farmers getting information from the electronic media and benefitting by learning new technologies from different mediums.

Malawi has in the past years experienced loss of productivity due to power loss in the manufacturing industry, and will benefit from improved reliability and access to electricity as highlighted in the Malawi Compact.