Malawi President Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera has saluted the Government of Iceland for giving Malawi top priority in its foreign development programs.
Chakwera made the sentiments in Lilongwe on Monday evening during a state banquet he hosted in honour of Bjarni Benedictsson.
The Malawi leader observed that of several countries, Malawi is the country in which Iceland invests more development resources than any other.
"This means that whenever Iceland wants to send resources for development around the world, Malawi is the first country they consider. I don't know if you're aware, Prime Minister, but in Malawian culture, the first people you consider sending support to and the people you send the most support to when you get your paycheck at the end of the month are one's family relations. So the fact that Malawi is the first you consider supporting and the country to which you send more support than any other means that you treat us as members of your extended family. In fact, what all this means is that Malawi is Iceland's most important development partner on the whole continent of Africa, Iceland's African sister from another mother if you will, and that makes our relationship very very special indeed," said Chakwera.
He further stated that the Malawi and Iceland relationship is special because the Icelandic approach to development support, which he observed that it has a bias towards bilateral cooperation.
He said while Iceland supports several multilateral agencies that have programs in Malawi, the lion's share of the country's support comes in a bilateral framework that allows the Governments of our two nations to work closely together on implementation and execution, which fosters true partnership between us.
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"When you consider that in much of the Global North these days the preference is for Governments to channel their support to developing nations like ours through the work and programmes of third parties rather than the Governments of those nations, it is refreshing that in Malawi, Iceland has made the bold decision not only to do both, but to have a bias towards Government to Government collaboration. This policy is a paradigm shift because if Government abuses development resources, it is held accountable by voters through elections, meaning that the people empowered to hold elected officials accountable for the use of those resources are the beneficiaries themselves, not the donors. So Iceland's bias for close collaboration through bilateral development support for programmes and projects that the Government of Malawi and the Government of Iceland implement together as partners makes our relationship very special," he said.
Meanwhile, he called upon Malawians to rally behind the relationship that exists between the two countries.
