It’s worth saying that every hearsay and every whisper about the inner workings of our civil service had always seemed fictitious. Everything, ranging from the distribution of allowances, a fixation on field work and an unusually minimal workload. These characterizations would normally not ignite the fire to work for the government, but when one is deeply buried under the predicament of unemployed youths in Malawi, this meant...

The drama, anxieties and entertainment from the presentation of nomination papers and appointments of running mates are now fizzling out. For some like President Peter Mutharika, the decision of running mate has not only left us asking ‘what just happened here?’ but may well become a costly one on both the ballot as well as the internal cohesion of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). The United Transformation Movement (UTM...

It's not uncommon to hear development practitioners preaching gender equality in the context of the missed development opportunities that result from the traditional neglect of women in development. To rights-oriented practitioners, such rhetoric is dangerous. And it usually misses a key point in the realization of women’s progress as a right in itself, where the focus of development must be gender equality and not the develop...

This article has been written in the author's personal capacity.

I am joining this conversation not just as an African woman but also as a professional in the women’s rights space. I join those that argue how, in the two years between 2016 and 2018, we have witnessed unprecedented political debate on issues concerning women. Numerous articles on the subject have been striking in noting that the impact of #MeToo, #WhyIDidntRepor...

An Austrian youngster walks into her parents’ house at 8 on a Sunday morning. Her dad, in the kitchen, goes, “did you enjoy your party, last night, dear?” To this she says, “yes, dad!”

“Did you have sex?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Well, I hope you remembered your condoms, schatz…but I hope you enjoyed it!”

Not the typical conversation in a Malawian family, let alone to say an ideal one. So, what’s what about Malawi?

Our country is conspicuously...

The room was abuzz and women of all ages, from all walks of Malawian life, flooded in through the doors. A momentous occasion was here at long last. Not just any ordinary women’s convention, to weep about our dire situation, but one that would develop a concrete women’s manifesto. A manifesto which would express the interests of Malawian women. Not dictated by a man. Not decided by parliamentarians. But one designed for her, b...

“Thus to challenge patriarchy, to dispute the idea that it is men who should be dominant figures in the family and society, is to be seen not as fighting against the male privilege, but as attempting to destroy African tradition, or to subvert Afrikaner ideals or undermine civilized and deemed British values.”

The South African Education and the Ideology of Patriarchy by Daniella Coetzee.

Patriarchy is one the oldest social ins...

There is a less sensual side of the gender inequality conversation much of the expertise employed to work on the social problem conveniently ignores: one that puts gender rhetoric and “men as potential victims” of the imposition of gendered social norms in the same place. It is one that must not be confused with the engagement of men and boys with a singular view to ameliorate the lives of women and girls, but one that must so...

The modern city is the quintessential symbol of human progress, a loud indicator of a country’s willingness and readiness to spring to the future or languish in the past. The one universal constant of our age happens to be one of society’s resolute determination towards urbanization, a reality that both developed and developing countries will share for ages to come. Despite this otherwise normally welcome dynamic, cities of th...

Youth in politics have been marginalized for as long as post-independence self-rule has existed in Malawi. The look of our political landscape is rather grey and wrinkly, and frequently has led to bad decisions on development and people’s wellbeing. We live in a contemporary Malawi that every neighbour in Africa and the rest of the world is able to easily overtake on many fronts, including economic, social and environmental. I...