During the sidelines of loan and grant signing agreements between the Malawi Government and the African Development Bank (AfDB), the latter confirmed that the possibility of providing budgetary support to Malawi in its 2019/20 budget.

AfDB acting director general for Southern African Region Development and Business Delivery Service Josephine Ngure said that after a positive signal from IMF and that a high-level team will be visiting the country in two weeks’ time to discuss the issue further along with other development support possibilities.

Ngure said that the AfDB’s confidence follows after a positive report of Malawi came from the positive progress report from the IMF program. She said: “The fact that we have positive reports coming out of the discussions with the IMF is encouraging for us.”   

However, she outlined that the pan african bank looks beyond the IMF program, to other criteria when processing budgetary support operation. “Those are the things we will be reviewing when our high- level mission arrives in the country,” she said, revealing that in two weeks, a high-level team will be visiting the country to discuss the issue further along with other development support possibilities.