Malawi's Climate Fight 'Strangled' By Crushing Debt Burden, Actionaid Warns

Malawi is being denied the chance to fight back against climate change because a staggering 24 percent of the national budget is being swallowed up by debt repayments, campaigners have warned.

ActionAid Malawi (AAM) Climate Justice Focal Chairperson Jimmy Chimalizeni made the explosive claim during an aerobics event the organisation jointly staged with fellow NGOs to rally young people ahead of the Global Week for Climate Justice.

Chimalizeni didn't mince his words, insisting Malawi simply cannot achieve climate justice while its finances remain shackled by debt.

He said the country's spiralling public debt is directly sabotaging the fight against climate change, with scarce cash that should be going towards climate action, health, education and agriculture instead being siphoned off to service loans.

"This year during the Global Week for mobilisation for climate justice, the young people have been mobilised. Mostly, we are talking about the issues of debt cancellation," he said.

"We have calculated a very huge amount of public debt, and at this stage, its repayment has affected the allocation of other resources into other essential public services like health, education, and agriculture."

For ActionAid, the message is stark: climate justice and debt justice are two sides of the same coin.

According to the organisation's own figures, more than 24 percent of the national budget -- recorded in government books as public debt charges -- is now being funnelled into debt servicing, leaving climate financing scraping the barrel.

"The funds that are required to be channeled towards climate action now have been redirected to debt servicing. This has left other sectors like climate financing with very little resources," he said.

It's why, Chimalizeni explained, this year's youth-driven campaign is demanding not just climate action but outright debt cancellation and a shake-up of the global debt system.

Youth demand a seat at the table

Campaigners are also pushing back against the idea that young people are merely helpless bystanders in the climate crisis.

ActionAid wants them recognised as "agents of change" with a genuine say in decisions on climate policy.

"We are seeing young people not just as victims of climate change... but we are also seeing them as agents of change, so we want them to have a seat at the table, even on questions of climate and climate justice," Chimalizeni said.

Mining cash 'must reach communities'

With mining activity booming across Malawi, ActionAid is also demanding that proceeds from extraction be transparently redirected into climate financing -- and that communities living alongside mining operations actually see the benefit.

Chimalizeni said the timing couldn't be more critical, with world leaders set to gather for the UN General Assembly in October and COP30 in November, where Malawi's negotiators must make the case for debt-distressed, climate-vulnerable nations like itself.

'People know the answers -- they just need the money'

Pressed on what government and NGOs should actually do to tackle the root causes of climate vulnerability, from farming to energy poverty, Chimalizeni insisted the solutions already exist at grassroots level -- they're just starved of cash.

"Most of our interventions, they simply need funding. This is right from the communities where we work, where a lot of people are saying we believe that the solutions are just there. They just need funding," he said.

He singled out energy as an urgent priority, accusing authorities of telling Malawians to abandon firewood without giving them anything affordable to replace it with.

"We are telling people not to use firewood, but we are not giving them the other alternatives. Most of these energy sources are expensive," he said, calling for government subsidies on solar, gas and other clean energy sources.

He also warned that Malawi's heavy dependence on hydropower -- vulnerable to both drought and flooding -- leaves the country dangerously exposed, and renewed calls for a genuine, "just" transition to diversified energy sources.

"We need a proper transition. We need a just transition to other sources of energy. If we can allocate more resources towards these investments, I'm sure we can deal with the climate crisis," he said.

ActionAid's verdict is blunt: unless Malawi frees up fiscal space from crippling debt, empowers its youth, and ensures mining wealth actually funds climate resilience, the country will keep paying the price for a crisis it did almost nothing to cause.

Read the original article on Nyasa Times.