Collins Magalasi
biography
Collins Magalasi is the Head of Policy for ActionAid International based in Malawi. He provides leadership and management to the country programmes and projects and is responsible for overall country and regional level advocacy, policy influencing and campaign work and ensures linkages with field-level programme and policy work.
He has worked as Country Director for ActionAid International in South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland. Before joining ActionAid, Collins was the Executive Director for the Malawi Economic Justice Network – a public policy and economic governance think tank and also worked as Senior Civic Education Officer for the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace.
Collins is, since 2005, Commissioner for the Competition and Fair Trading Commission (CFTC) of Malawi, a member of the Trade Negotiation Team for Malawi and also adviser to the Malawi and Southern Africa Social Forums. He has actively engaged international financial institutions for over a decade and has extensive experience in policy advocacy, research, programme implementation and management in areas of public policy, economic governance, budget, trade, debt and aid and development.
Collins is a political economist trained at Chancellor College of the University of Malawi (Malawi), Brandeis University (USA), the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa) and University of London (UK).
The World Bank’s Role in Causing Food Insecurity in Malawi
Malawi is heavily dependent on agriculture, both for its economy and the livelihoods of around 90% of the population. From 2000, Malawi suffered from persistent food insecurity and widespread hunger, which was made much worse by the policies pushed by the World Bank, including massively reducing the government’s support to small-holder farmers. Malawi had to privatise its grains marketing authority and remove fertilizer subsidies as a precondition for receiving a WB structural adjustment credit in 2003. In 2005 when a food crisis hit the country, Malawi’s government insisted on reviving its fertilizer subsidy, releasing over $60 million from national funds. The goal was to lower the price of fertilizers and enable agricultural producers to prepare for the following year. The resulting success and aversion of an impending famine has been described as resounding. The results of rejecting World Bank prescriptions were startling – agricultural output more than doubled in 2005, and has continued to rise since.
Collins will give evidence on the social impact of World Bank conditionalities on food security in Malawi.
