President Lazarus Chakwera on Sunday held bilateral discussions with fellow world leaders on the sidelines of the 5th United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries where they discussed investment opportunities for Malawi in Agriculture and Tourism.
First on President Chakwera's engagement list was President of Poland, Andrzej Duda, with whom they talked about industrialization and finding common ground between Malawi and Poland in the agricultural sector.
President Chakwera emphasized that Poland's vast experience in agricultural commercialization, is in line with Malawi's 2063 development agenda and therefore poses an opportunity for Malawi to learn from the East European nation.
The Malawi leader further expressed gratitude to Poland for its camaraderie during Malawi's tenure as Chair of LDC, saying the development heralds a renaissance for diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Earlier on, in the continued spirit of fostering relations, President Chakwera also had an audience with Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, President of Maldives.
The two nations discussed strengthened relations and greater collaboration and coordination in the tourism sector.
The World Bank classifies the Maldives as having an upper-middle income economy, with a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) nominal of US$5.502 billion and GDP per capita income of US$14,078 attributed mainly to its success in the tourism industry.
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LDCs KEY TO ACHIEVING SDGs-CHAKWERA
President Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has challenged rich nations, cautioning that it is impossible for them and the entire universe to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) if the poorest nations operating under the LDCs banner are sidelined.
Addressing a High-Level Thematic Roundtable Discussion on Sunday, the Malawi leader said it is important that no one is left behind, halfway through a journey towards achieving SDGs, as well as the agenda 2030.
President Chakwera co-chaired the roundtable discussion (under the theme "Investing in People in the Least Developed Countries to Leave No-one Behind") alongside Andrzej Duda who is Poland President.
"LDCs represent unprecedented opportunity to address fundamental challenges facing the world. LDCs represent an opportunity for themselves as well as for the world at large...it is impossible to achieve agenda 2030 and SDGs without LDCs," said Chakwera.
Narrowing down to Malawi, Chakwera took advantage of the platform to inform the conference that his government has managed to craft a second long-term national development plan, Malawi Vision 2063, which he said has been aligned to many international blueprints such as the Agenda 2030.
At this juncture, Chakwera reiterated the need for developed countries to elevate their support towards the poorest nations, while helping the LDCs reduce their level of vulnerabilities to multiple external shocks.
President Duda expressed hope that the implementation of the Doha Programme of Action (2022-2030), which was adopted last year in New York, will be crucial to bringing equality between rich and poor nations, going forward.
