World news story

Scotland and Malawi celebrate 10 years of cooperation

Scottish Government Minister for International Development, Humza Yousaf, arrives on Monday 19 October 2015 to appreciate progress made

Yousaf

Humza Yousaf

International Development Minister for the Scottish Government Humza Yousaf will arrive on Monday 19 October 2015 to visit Scottish Government funded international development projects and mark ten years of the official link between the two countries.

The Governments of Scotland and Malawi signed a Cooperation Agreement in November 2005. Scottish Government projects work alongside the broad and extensive assistance to Malawi provided by the UK Government and both models of assistance demonstrate the commitment of our peoples to the people of Malawi.

While in the country, Mr Yousaf will undertake a number of meetings with the Government of Malawi to discuss progress over the last 10 years. Mr Yousaf will also be visiting a number of Scottish Government funded projects to see what has been achieved in the past decade, and will meet people whose lives have been transformed thanks to the help and generosity of Scots.

Mr Yousaf said:

Scotland and Malawi have an important relationship and we can all be very proud of what we have achieved since our two countries signed the Cooperation Agreement a decade ago.

People from all over Scotland are involved in our partnership with Malawi – whether they work for organisations on the ground or help to raise funds in their community.

Every year more than 300,000 Scots and two million Malawian benefit from the work we do in partnership, in areas including education, health, agriculture and renewable energy.

Scots have a long history of working with Malawians to alleviate poverty, which we should be very proud of, and I am looking forward to seeing how our work is continuing to make an impact and helping some the poorest and most vulnerable people in the world.

Whether it be through helping farmers to increase their yields, bringing in life-saving emergency Meningitis treatment centres for infants, or introducing screening for cervical cancer into remote rural villages, I know the partnership between Scots and Malawians is helping us to change and improve lives.

Amongst the many successes of our projects in Malawi, we’ve seen nearly 140,000 children attending primary health care treated as priorities for treatment by clinicians and receiving timely emergency treatment, we’ve brought new energy access to almost 80,000 people in rural Malawi, and helped provide at least 560 pupils with vocational training which will help them find jobs.

I’m looking forward to meeting more of the people whose lives have been transformed by our partnership, and sharing their stories back in Scotland.

Mr Yousaf will be in Malawi from Monday until Saturday, October 24th.

Further Information

Follow us on Twitter or Facebook

Published 18 October 2015