By Catherine Tembo:
The Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance (SAAPA) has expressed concern over the government’s delays in implementing the National Alcohol Policy since its adoption.
To assess progress and identify gaps in the policy’s implementation, SAAPA Malawi hosted a high-level multi-stakeholder meeting in LIlongwe.
The meeting, supported by Norwegian Church Aid and DanChurchAid with financial assistance from FORUT, aimed to gather views and insights from various stakeholders on the main challenges hindering policy implementation.
Speaking in an interview
SAAPA Chairperson Jefferson Millanzi.
emphasized the need for the government to expedite its implementation processes, given the current situation where many young people are indulging in alcohol abuse, which is hampering the country’s development.
He said the meeting has highlighted some of the gaps such as lack of coordination among the stakeholders hence the need for them to work together to ensure that the policy is implemented.
“It very unfortunate that the government has not yet been able to start implementing the National Alcohol Policy hence this is why we need to start acting now to urge the government to speed up the process and see what is causing the delays ” Milanzi said.
The Malawi government adopted the National Alcohol Policy in 2017 during the leadership of former President Peter Mutharika with an aim of regulating the production, distribution, sale, advertisement and consumption of alcohol to check alcohol abuse
The policy is part of the National Action Plan on The prevention and control of Non- Communicable Diseases.
