Volunteers and other concerned individuals gathered at a forum in Tokyo on Saturday to discuss how to assist Malawi, a sub-Saharan nation among the least developed in Africa.
The Japan-Malawi Forum 2018 convened at the JICA Global Plaza in Shinjuku Ward, drawing 180 participants. The event was held by the Malawi Society of Japan, an organization established in 1983 and mainly run by former members of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) who were sent to Malawi as part of Japan's official development assistance.
According to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which oversees the volunteers' activities, 1,789 people have been sent to Malwi through the JOCV since 1971, the most among the 90 countries to which volunteers have been assigned.
Many attribute the surprisingly high figure to Malawi's relative political stability among African nations, but others note its high dependency on donor countries as a key reason for the abundance of volunteers.
At the forum, Tokyo Women's Medical University Prof. Tomohiko Sugishita emphasized the need to reconsider the current economic system in which the gap between the rich and poor has steadily widened. He also urged participants to think about how to achieve sustainable development in Africa. Sugishita served in Malawi as a volunteer surgeon in 1995 for three years.
Malawi's economy is dependent on agricultural output vulnerable to externalities such as erratic rains. According to World Bank data, Malawi had a gross national income per capita of 320 dollars in 2017, which ranked 188th among 189 economies surveyed. The World Bank says the country's poverty "is driven by poor performance of the agriculture sector, volatile economic growth, population growth, and limited opportunities in non-farm activities."
Executive director of the Malawi Society of Japan Mitsumune Kaizuka, one of the first volunteers sent to Malawi in 1971, told The Japan News: "Malawi is landlocked and resourceless. We should continue to assist the country in such areas as agricultural production during the dry season and educating young Malawians. At the very least, the country needs to reach a certain economic level."
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