Malawi has rich culture
Malawi has a new set of ministers following Tonse Alliance’s triumph during the June 23 presidential election. The new minister of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife is Michael Usi. Soon after his appointment, he talked to The Nation about his vision for the country, especially on culture and tourism. Now one of the country’s cultural organisations Sungani Zakwathu Cultural Heritage, through its executive director Richard Mfune, weighs in on the new minister’s vision for the sector. In this interview with our EDITH GONDWE, Mfune shares his thoughts. Exercepts:
Q
: What are your thoughts on the capabilities of the new Minister of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife?
A
: Firstly, as Sungani Zakwathu Cultural Heritage Association, we welcome the new minister to the sector and we know him as a hard-working person. We hope he will take the ministry to another level in terms of tangible developments. We also thank the government for bringing together these three departments of Tourism, Culture and Wildlife. These departments closely relate to each other as culture and wildlife provide most tourism products to be marketed by the Department of Tourism. So, I do not doubt that there are some challenges on coordination each time these departments are separated and placed under different ministries as such ministries might have their own priorities.
Q
: What are the expectations for Sungani Zakwathu Cultural Heritage Association from this development in the culture and tourism sector?
A
: Our expectations are that as a ministry, all the three departments will be given the same attention because they depend on each other if we are to see a developed tourism sector.
Q
: What are the main culture and tourism challenges in Malawi right now?
A
: In Malawi and Africa in general, we have one common problem or challenge. We have got a very rich culture which is the main reason most international tourists wish to visit our countries, and unfortunately, it has been poorly developed and packaged as of now. Instead of firstly, focusing on the product development and packaging, we tend to mostly focus on marketing our countries with not much available tourism products. My opinion is that as a country, let us seriously develop and package our products so that we have a full tourism package for any type of tourists visiting Malawi.
Q
: And what are available opportunities for the sector?
A
: As indicated above, we just need to develop and package our tourism products. You know globally today, tourism is a labour intensive sector employing most people in many countries. So, we will create employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for most Malawians once we invest in the sector. We need to build the capacity for many Malawians through training in different tourism segments like tour guides, community cultural practitioners, among others. And this informal and non-formal training could be offered in our community technical colleges established across the country. We need just to develop proper curricula with Teveta for the sector. Another opportunity the sector has is that government through the National Planning Commission is championing the 2063 Agenda whose agenda is job and wealth creation. The government also has the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy III which has tourism as one of the priority areas. You will see that all this shows how much Malawi and its people will develop if we focus on developing this sector which has the potential to create jobs for most Malawians. And with our limited resources in Malawi, cultural tourism sector should be easy to develop because it does not require heavy and expensive machinery for training as mostly it needs locally available materials.
Q
: Recently, the minister talked of the need for Malawi to aggressively market the hotels, monuments, and other places of interest. What do you say to that?
A
: Yes I agree with the minister on that but there is more we need to do first. Malawi needs to be innovative and come up with products which would satisfy potential tourists for our country. And those products couldn’t exclude culture which is unique about Malawi, the Warm Heart of Africa. So, as examples, we need to construct cultural centres, cultural villages, museums and other facilities en route to or close to establishments like hotels, national parks, monuments where local or international visitors can appreciate the culture for the area in the process of visiting those structures.
Q
: What advice would you give to government this time as it is preparing the 2020/2021 National Budget in relation to the culture and tourism sector?
A
: The Treasury should avoid labelling the culture sector as an economic sector in trying to under-fund it in every annual budget. This is not correct for stakeholders who know how much other countries have economically developed by investing adequately in this sector. I also appeal to the Ministry of Labour in collaboration with Teveta to revive the culture course curriculum development which we started in 2016 but it stalled unceremoniuosly. The ministry can easily achieve its one million jobs every year if it develops this sector through capacity building for youths and women in both urban and rural areas.
