While commending the government for increasing the budget allocation to early childhood development (ECD) from K803 million in the 2019/2020 budget to K3 billion in the 2020/2021 budget, WaterAid Malawi contends that the allocation still falls short of the MGDS III’s recommended K4.9 billion allocation.
In a statement, WaterAid’s coordinator for policy & sector engagement, Lloyd Mtalimanja says this is especially concerning in that “although Government surpassed the MGDS III’s target for budget allocation to the Education & Skills Development sector by about 75% in the 2020/2021 budget, it still underfunded ECD”.
“This suggests that ECD is not adequately prioritized in budget allocations. Regrettably the 2019/20 ECD budget estimate also fell short of the minimum recommended expenditure on ECD proposed in the MGDS III by MK3.5 billion (81%),” Mtalimanja said.