News stories by Claire Ngozo, page 4

The market can do better: a sanitation and hygiene campaign to be launched in Malawi plans to apply this tenet to improve cleanliness and public health the country's cities.

Malawi is bracing itself for difficult economic times following a decision by the country’s main donors to withhold financial aid amounting to $400 million. Donors say they are responding to a range of governance and human rights issues in the country.

When the ban on traditional birth attendants was lifted last year, pregnant women quickly appeared at Dorothy Chirwa's door in Malombe village in Mangochi, a district on the southern shores of Lake Malawi. Chirwa was among the thousands of TBAs banned from providing women with care in 2007.

At its best it is waterless, odorless, eminently affordable and has a rich fertiliser as byproduct, yet for residents of Malawi's informal settlements, dry sanitation retains a whiff of the unwanted.

Increasing energy prices have caused anxiety for many small-scale Malawian traders, especially those in rural areas and peri-urban areas who rely on paraffin for lighting their business premises.

As Malawi works on its second development blueprint, the Malawi Development and Growth Strategy (MDGS II), the country’s women are hoping health and education will be prioritised and given proper attention in implementation.

An hour and fifteen minutes each day: Melina Kalunga has plenty of time to measure how long it takes to resolve a legal battle over Malawi's Electoral Commission.



As the rains start to fall in Malawi, marking the beginning of the growing season, government is continuing to implement the fertiliser and seed subsidy programme which has since made the country a bread basket in the Southern African Development Community, SADC.

The announcement that 5,000 new classrooms will be built thanks to a $140 million World Bank loan would come as welcome news at the Chitowo Primary School - if only the children sitting on the floors, perched on doors and in windows, even taking lessons in the dust beneath trees in the yard could hear it.

Land-locked Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe expect to improve their import and export fortunes following the opening of an inland harbour, the Nsanje World Inland Port, on Malawi’s biggest river, The Shire.