Malawi is making headway in its drive to enhance internet connectivity and towards digitalisation of public services provisions, the Public Private Partnership Commission (PPPC) has said.For instance, through the Malawi Digital Project—a World Bank-funded initiative aimed at laying foundations for digital connectivity, market competitiveness, digital skills, and digital services delivery infrastructure— over 530 public institutions including schools and offices have been connected to reliable internet.First phase of the project, valued at $74 million, has focused on leveraging improved connectivity and public digital service delivery capacity to accelerate growth and expansion of digital services offering across sectors.Activities under the initial phase focused on four components including digital ecosystem, digital connectivity (like setting up digital infrastructure), and digital platforms and services.Updating stakeholders on the strides registered at the opening of a two-day stakeholders’ consultative meeting on Tuesday in Blantyre, PPPC Chief Executive Officer Patrick Kabambe said the commission is impressed with the progress.“Through the programme, we have also constructed the National Data Centre in Lilongwe which will house and coordinate all government information systems and enhance a deepened penetration of the digital spaces in Malawi,” Kabambe said.He said the project, which is already in its second phase, is assisted in automating the public procurement system.He said the initiative has also assisted in sealing existing loopholes in public procurement processes.“So, with an automated public procurement system, we are also able to fight and deal with fraud as every transaction is tracked down and monitored,” Kabambe said.The meeting brought together players in the local digital space and is aimed at informing the formulation of Malawi’s Commercial Transactions Manual (CTM) which officials say is an important requirement for the implementation of every robust World Bank-sponsored project.Earlier, Secretary for e-government Stephen Mjuweni said the consultation meeting will go a long way in ensuring the standardisation of all government operations.Mjuweni said operationalisation of the National Data Centre will also benefit the private sector.“The private sector such as commercial banks will be able to use the digital space to verify information regarding clients, whenever they want to obtain a loan for example, so as a country, we are making significant progress but there is still need for a lot more coordination to address gaps that still exist in the country’s digital space,” Mjuweni said.About $150 million more will be invested in the project in the next phase which runs for the next two phases as the government scales up efforts to connect about 2000 more of its institutions out of its existing 11,000 institutions.
Connectivity drive impresses PPPC
