Statecraft & Independence
Landmark
Bingu wa Mutharika
1934 – 2012
Turned Malawi from famine into a maize exporter, then turned on his own people
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Malawi Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
His fertiliser subsidy took Malawi from food aid to surplus in two seasons and was copied across Africa; he chaired the African Union. His second term ended in fuel queues, a crackdown that killed twenty protesters, and his death in office.
Bingu wa Mutharika was an economist who spent most of his working life outside Malawi — with the World Bank, the United Nations, and as secretary general of COMESA, the regional common market — before returning and winning the presidency in 2004 as the chosen successor of Bakili Muluzi. He broke with Muluzi within months and formed his own party, which left him governing without a parliamentary majority.
His central decision came in 2005, after a harvest failure left roughly five million Malawians needing food aid. Against the explicit advice of donors and international lenders, who had spent two decades insisting that input subsidies were a waste, he introduced the Farm Input Subsidy Programme: coupons that let smallholders buy fertiliser and improved seed at a fraction of the market price.
Within two seasons Malawi had a maize surplus and was exporting to Zimbabwe and selling to the World Food Programme. The programme became the most studied agricultural intervention in Africa, was copied in several countries, and forced a genuine reconsideration of subsidy orthodoxy among development economists. Growth ran at around seven per cent a year for the rest of the decade, and he was re-elected in 2009 by a landslide with a parliamentary majority behind him. He chaired the African Union in 2010 and pressed hard on African food security. He died in office in April 2012.
His central decision came in 2005, after a harvest failure left roughly five million Malawians needing food aid. Against the explicit advice of donors and international lenders, who had spent two decades insisting that input subsidies were a waste, he introduced the Farm Input Subsidy Programme: coupons that let smallholders buy fertiliser and improved seed at a fraction of the market price.
Within two seasons Malawi had a maize surplus and was exporting to Zimbabwe and selling to the World Food Programme. The programme became the most studied agricultural intervention in Africa, was copied in several countries, and forced a genuine reconsideration of subsidy orthodoxy among development economists. Growth ran at around seven per cent a year for the rest of the decade, and he was re-elected in 2009 by a landslide with a parliamentary majority behind him. He chaired the African Union in 2010 and pressed hard on African food security. He died in office in April 2012.
- Britannica — Bingu wa Mutharika
- Wikipedia — Bingu wa Mutharika
- Human Rights Watch — World Report 2012: Malawi
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