Malawi: Secretary Antony J. Blinken At the Millennium Challenge Corporation MOU Signing With Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera, Malawian Finance and Economic Affairs Minister Sosten Gwengwe, and MCC CEO Alice Albright

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Blinken At the Millennium Challenge Corporation MOU Signing With Chakwera,...: Malawi

From left: Malawi Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Sosten Alfred Gwengwe, President of Malawi Lazarus Chakwera, MCC CEO Alice Albright, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.MS ALBRIGHT: Good morning. Thank you all so much for joining us today to celebrate a remarkable moment in the longstanding partnership between the United States and the Republic of Malawi.

Building on this success and Malawi's strong commitment to democratic governance, MCC's board then selected Malawi for a second compact in 2018. And today we are signing that. So it's a great moment. This program also prioritizes road safety and provides technical assistance to the Malawi Roads Authority to improve maintenance and planning. And further, the compact will support the Government of Malawi in addressing competition policy to help ensure that transport costs over time decrease while promoting sustainable management of the transport sector, including at the local level.

So that's the team over there that's done all the hard work to make this a reality. So again, huge thank you. There's lots to go, though, but huge thank you. I'm now going to call a number of our distinguished guests to come and share their remarks. So with that, I would like to first introduce our next speaker, the Malawian minister of finance and economic affairs, Sosten Alfred Gwengwe. He has been absolutely instrumental in getting this compact organized. He's also a member of parliament in Malawi and has served in cabinet in various positions, including the minister of transport and industry and trade.

And the proposed interventions under this compact include two main projects; firstly, the construction of four corridor roads in the three regions of Malawi, and this proposed activity seeks to reduce travel time and costs for smallholder farmers throughout - through the improvement of targeted roads in selected transport sector. This will improve road conditions and thereby facilitate greater flow of agricultural products from farm gates to urban, regional, and export markets.

On that note, it is now my similar honor to invite His Excellency the President of the Republic of Malawi Dr. Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera to address us. Your Excellency, sir. Thank you. Mr. President, Mr. Minister, thank you for your partnership, but thank you especially for your leadership. And I'll have more to say about that in a few minutes, but it's been remarkable and deeply, deeply appreciated.

First, upgrading major roads will make urban markets more accessible, so that people in rural areas can travel quickly and cheaply, and more swiftly bring their products to market. In the doing, we'll also help combat gender-based violence along these roads and markets, so that women can safely transport and sell their goods.

With these new projects, the United States and Malawi will build upon the progress we've made through the MCC - and through many other partnerships that we have. And for years, we've collaborated to strengthen Malawi's food security - improving nutrition, increasing food production, connecting more farmers to markets. Now, President Putin's war of choice on Ukraine has contributed to driving up the price of food, the price of fuel, fertilizers, as well as their availability, including in Malawi - rolling back some of the hard-earned development gains and driving more people back into poverty.

So what does that mean? Over the next five years, we are working with Congress to invest over $11 billion around the world toward, again, not only responding to the immediate crisis, but - critically - building resilience that will better prepare communities worldwide not only to withstand future shocks, but again, to have enduring agricultural productive capacity.

 

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