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25 July 2021

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His Excellency the President Dr. Lazarus Chakwera is expected to attend the Global Education Summit in London from the 28th to the 29th of July, making it his first official visit to the United Kingdom.

The President is expected to be accompanied by Minister of Education Honourable Agness Nyalonje and other senior government officials to the summit which is being co-chaired by Rt Hon Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and His Excellency Uhuru Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya.
According to the official website for the summit, the Global Education Summit: Financing Global Partnership for Education 2021-2025 will be a key moment for the global community to come together and support quality education for all children.

A centrepiece of the summit will be the opportunity for leaders to make 5-year pledges to support GPE's work to help transform education systems in up to 90 countries and territories including Malawi.
Coronavirus has worsened the global education crisis, with 1.3 billion children – including 650 million girls – out of education at the peak of school closures. Experts warn that many children will never return, particularly as countries experience an economic contraction in the wake of the pandemic.

Missing out on education does long term damage to individuals and communities, with girls particularly at risk. The benefits of schooling are transformative and multi-generational - a child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live past the age of five and twice as likely to attend school themselves. With just one additional school year, a woman’s earnings can increase by a fifth.
President Chakwera has championed girl’s education as the key to preventing exploitation and unlocking potential in Malawi and has strongly spoken against poverty and girls being forced into child marriage.

He has instituted a task force to address violence against children and protect them from rape and sexual abuse in Malawi.
The Malawi government has stressed its commitment to a youth-centric approach to address these challenges, recently outlining a fresh national strategy seeking for Malawi to become an industrialized upper-middle-income country by the year 2063.

Education will be a pivotal factor within this transformation: not only through enhancing learning systems but in widening access to quality schooling for all children and tackling a consistently high drop-out rate.

Apart from the summit, the Royal Institute of International Affairs also known as Chatham House has announced that the President will address the institute on 30th July 2021.
The event will be live streamed on through this link https://www.chathamhouse.org/events/all/members-event/malawis-priorities-inclusive-prosperity.

The President is expected to outline the priority areas of policy implementation for positive change in Malawi, including the pathways to deliver and support quality education for the country’s young population.

Full details of the Presidents engagements in London will be updated here.