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It does, repeatedly, and compares it to other landlocked countries.
We don't know why Malawi is poor
21–30 of 147 posts
Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#22[flagged]
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Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#23Malawi is poor because there is no reason for it to grow above the normal growth rate. Countries usually find themselves in a high growth situation if they are at the cross-road of major trade or geopolitics (ie: Singapore, UAE, korea, Taiwan, etc.) Of course the opportunity has to be cultivated but it has to be there in the first place.
There isn't much in Africa especially in the part of Malawi. They are not even coastal (they are landlocked) which makes their situation even worse.
Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#24The Central African Republic, which has a low population density, lots of water and arable land is also very poor. As is South Sudan. It must be very hard to trade your way out of poverty if you are landlocked in a poor continent. All the countries in Europe are well off by world standards because there's an enormous market next-door.
Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#25[flagged]
didn't europeans colonize and destroy everything in the United States?
Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#26[flagged]
The article discusses this, and compares it to other labor-extractive colonial states in subsaharan Africa. If there were an easy explanation, it appears like it would be in the article, which is pretty expansive.
Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#27[flagged]
So were lots of other countries that went on to grow a lot faster. That's what the article is about.
Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#28[deleted]
Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#29This is a dumb take that highlights the common lack of experience with Africa that arises with anyone who writes about it - Malawi was always much poorer than the rest of East Africa as can be seen by the 1990 HDI [0].
Starting from a lower base as well as weak institutions, weak capital markets, and political instability during the transition to democracy lead Malawi to underperform.
Additionally, Rwanda received massive amounts of foreign aid to a degree that Malawi and other African nations never saw [1]
Unsurprising that this is an OpenPhilanthropy blog.
[0] - https://countryeconomy.com/hdi?year=1990
[1] - https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/DT.ODA.ODAT.GN.ZS?locat...
Re: We don't know why Malawi is poor
#30Perhaps there are cultural reasons that explain this, such as attitudes towards work, entrepreneurship, private ownership etc? I have no idea if Rwanda and Malawi have difference there, but globally one can see clearly see the impact of culture. Just look at how well Japan did despite losing WW2 and having little natural resources, or how badly Russia has done despite its huge landmass and resources, because the poli…
Malawians have a reputation of being extremely kind people, maybe that makes them bad at capitalism?