Minister of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare, Mary Navicha says her ministry has written the finance minister, proposing that 10 percent of the K5 billion constituency money should be allocated to early childhood development in the country.

Speaking during the Malawi Childcare Symposium, 2026 in Blantyre, Navicha, said the money will assist to professionalize the work of child care givers and spearhead resilient and quality infrastructure.

“We are here for the official opening of the child care symposium, 2026, this symposium creates a platform for child care workers to understand child care issues.

“For a long time, child care matters were largely handled by women and girls, but now we want to professionalize it as a decent job,” said Navicha, saying she wants part of the allocation made to the constituency to support child care related projects.

World University Service of Canada, Country Director, Godfrey Mphande said the organization's interest is to promote women’ economic empowerment as well as improving the quality of child care in Malawi.

He added that through the four year Action for Paid Child Care Transformation project being implemented in Malawi and Kenya, they intend to spend K2 billion on child care until 2028.

“So, our interest is women’ economic empowerment as well as improving the quality of child care in Malawi; as an organization, we work to support young people especially young women.

“Women form part of the biggest number of people working in the child care sector, so there is a need to uplift childcare as a profession, as a sector that is recognized, coordinated, regulated with financing and training opportunities,” said Mphande.

Director for Action for Paid Childcare Sector Transformation Project, for Malawi and Kenya, Ruth Muendo said she expects to see some level of organisation in Malawi for the different ecosystems actors.

“Because as it is now there is not much organization of the sector,so we hope to start some conversations as well as some government response, some policy response and recognition of the child care sector.

“Without any budget allocation or without any investment, a lot of efforts or advocacy we do, donor translate into action, so the reason why we are having this symposium and bring together different investment partners including government which is key public sector player and development sectors players like banks, micro finance institutions is to build awareness because this segment of the economy has a lot of potential,” said Muenda.

She added that they will be utilizing gains made in Kenya to improve child care issues in Malawi.