Africa-Press – Malawi. President Peter Mutharika used his 2026 State of the Nation Address (SONA) to project an image of a government embracing digitalisation as part of Malawi’s development agenda. From digital dashboards to online public services, the address signalled an awareness that technology is no longer optional in modern governance. But beneath the surface, the digital commitments outlined in the SONA reveal a fragmented, piecemeal approach that lacks a coherent national strategy—particularly in an era where artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly redefining economies, states, and societies.
In his address, Mutharika highlighted four key digital initiatives. First was the introduction of a national digital dashboard for the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), aimed at improving transparency and accountability by allowing citizens real-time access to how public funds are being used. In the education sector, the government committed to introducing digital skills and e-learning at basic education level. In national security, Mutharika announced the piloting of a Digital Identity Wallet to modernise identity systems and move away from expiring physical ID cards. Finally, he directed all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to fully embrace digital technology, mandating that key services such as passports, national IDs, driving licences, and public procurement be accessed online.
On paper, these initiatives sound progressive. In practice, they expose a deeper problem: Malawi is digitising tactically, not strategically. There is no evidence of a unifying digital master plan, no mention of data governance frameworks, no national cybersecurity policy update, and critically, no reference to artificial intelligence as a development tool. What the government is pursuing is digitisation of existing processes, not digital transformation of the state.
The distinction is crucial. Digitisation merely moves paper processes onto screens. Digital transformation re-engineers how the state functions using technology, data, and automation. Without the latter, Malawi risks building digital replicas of inefficient, corrupt, and bureaucratic systems.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the anti-corruption discourse. Mutharika has repeatedly pledged to fight corruption, yet continues to rely on physical, manual, and discretionary systems that create opportunities for abuse. True digital governance—especially AI-driven systems—could radically change this. Automated procurement platforms, AI-based auditing systems, digital payment trails, biometric verification, and algorithmic risk detection would make corruption harder to hide, easier to trace, and faster to prosecute. When transactions are digital, data is permanent. When data is permanent, accountability becomes inevitable.
Yet Malawi’s digital agenda remains silent on this potential. The CDF dashboard, for instance, is presented as a transparency tool, but without AI-driven analytics, it will merely display information rather than detect anomalies, flag suspicious spending patterns, or predict misuse. Similarly, online procurement without AI oversight still allows cartels, inflated contracts, and political patronage to thrive—just in digital form.
Globally, AI is already reshaping governance. Countries are using machine learning to detect tax evasion, predict health system failures, automate land registries, optimise energy grids, manage traffic systems, and deliver targeted social protection. Malawi, by contrast, is still celebrating the digitisation of application forms.
The absence of a national AI policy is therefore not a technical oversight—it is a strategic failure. Without one, Malawi has no framework for ethical AI use, no standards for data protection, no investment plan for digital infrastructure, no roadmap for workforce reskilling, and no institutional capacity to integrate AI across sectors such as agriculture, health, education, finance, security, and justice.
This is especially dangerous for a country facing structural economic weaknesses. Malawi’s problems—low productivity, inefficient public services, leakages in public finance, weak monitoring systems, and poor service delivery—are precisely the types of challenges that AI is designed to address. Precision agriculture could boost yields. AI diagnostics could compensate for doctor shortages. Predictive analytics could prevent fuel crises. Automated tax systems could expand revenue without raising rates. Digital identity systems could eliminate ghost workers and benefit fraud.
But none of this is possible without a deliberate national strategy.
What Mutharika presented in the SONA was digitalisation as an accessory to governance. What Malawi needs is digitalisation as the engine of governance.
A serious AI policy would define national priorities, regulate private sector involvement, protect citizens’ data, build local technical capacity, integrate AI into public institutions, and align digital development with economic transformation. It would treat technology not as a side project of the ICT ministry, but as a cross-cutting foundation of the entire state.
Until that happens, Malawi’s digital future will remain symbolic rather than structural—announcements without architecture, platforms without power, and dashboards without real accountability.
In a world where nations are being rebuilt by algorithms, Malawi cannot afford to digitise the past. It must design the future.
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