3 - On rural development: a note on Malawi's Programmes of Development for exploitation*

Abstract

Abstract

In this paper, the author examines the programs and strategies
of rural development in Malawi since independence. It finds
that while a small group of people, namely the ruling elite,
appropriates the benefit of the economic growth that the country has
known since independence, development has not been carried out
in this country. On the contrary, he notes, the living conditions of the masses
the people, and in particular the peasants, have largely deteriorated
compared to the colonial period.
It mentions, in particular, the development programs
agricultural, of landed properties, which, while they enrich a
small group of people, turned peasants into sharecroppers and serfs
on their own land. The ruling minority controls almost everything, including
including production, marketing, financial institutions and
credit, and above all, the state. It signals the abolition of peasant cooperatives
that existed from colonial times and their replacement by the institutions
state marketing schemes which arbitrarily set
low prices for the products they buy from the peasants and prices
very high for the products they sell to them. These practices have
evidently deeply impoverished the peasants.
The author also points to the integration of Malawi into the racist orbit
of South Africa and Rhodesia. This results in deterioration
very marked Malawi's trade balance in favor
of the racist states of southern Africa, which replaced Great Britain
as main supplier of Malawi while importing
very little of this country.
One rural Developmen: a note on Malawi's 55 Finally, the author analyzes the living conditions of the majority of the population by examining the quality of life, public health, education, etc. He observes that these conditions have deteriorated profoundly in comparison with the colonial era. He concludes by indicating that for the popular masses, the so-called independence has brought only misery. The ruling minority elite not only controls the state and appropriates the benefits of economic growth by impoverishing the majority of the population, but also uses the state apparatus to further enrich itself and reproduce the system