Dear Mister President, The “Work Hard - Work Smart” thing isn’t working.

The President of Malawi’s inauguration speech earlier this year reduced me to tears. I thought it was beautiful. I still do. Many bits were quotable, especially where he admonished Malawians like me to “Work hard … and to work smart”. I felt fired up and even though I don’t know what two scores* are, the full message he shared was resoundingly clear and rewarding to hear after a long wait for his presidency.

As a career entrepreneur, working hard and smart is not alien to me. A new client that engaged me online to ghost write articles for them wrote that for my review/testimonial on the talent market website: “Maclean is hardworking”. It frustrated me because I like verbosity and they gave me a 92% score when I was hoping for 100. Later, I felt gratitude because it’s a pretty good review. Additionally, what else would you want to be known for when you work?

What I know for a fact now is I am not the exception. There are literally thousands of other Malawian entrepreneurs whose lives revolve around putting in their best almost every day. I have had the privilege of meeting hundreds of them through the work I do in Afrineur since 2016. Sadly, many of them have little to show for hard work based on a few factors. This article aims to introduce 3 factors that affect the average Malawian’s ability to work hard and work smart, regardless of how badly they want to.

Issues & Suggested Solutions

We do have some factors that are retarding our efforts… and it truly boils down to fixing 3 things for many of us to be more productive:

1. Electricity supply issues 2. Cost of Internet access 3. Issues internalizing funds easily from abroad (especially smaller amounts)

1. Electricity supply

I think it is pointless to ramble on too much about this because we all know it affects us. I wrote this during a blackout this Monday morning. For knowledge workers attempting to work hard and smart in front of a computer, the struggle is real. If you work from home and have no backup power supply, your attempt at productivity is curtailed until the electricity comes back on or until you go somewhere else that does have the power to complete your work. As we speak, I’m rationing my laptop power so I can finish writing this article, publish it, and then send off 10 proposals before my battery is completely drained. As I do not know when the power will come back, I have no idea if I will end up being as productive as I hope.

Also, I found myself working on a new client’s remote project some days ago. The electricity issue (in this case, a neighbourhood power fault) almost cost me business which I desperately needed. Since I work from home, I eventually went to a nearby township to charge up all my devices and complete my work. I am still anxious about being in high-density surroundings whilst the pandemic is not completely over, so being forced to do so was very uncomfortable. Quite frankly, I resented having to. If I was in the middle of a client’s work today, I would have no choice but to do the same.

Possible Interim solutions to the Power issue:

A lasting solution will take time to implement. I presume this most likely would be an increased number of renewable energy power stations, eventually.

Meanwhile, how about:

1.1. Blackout schedules via SMS: In the absence or run up to long term solutions, being provided with blackout schedules via SMS to subscribers in a particular area would be incredibly helpful. If efforts can be made to provide these in as much advance time as possible, this could be very helpful for us to organize ourselves around it. I know that there are schedules circulated at times .. and I believe there must have been a notice that we will have erratic connectivity for some weeks. However, the fact that I do not know this for sure, I think is symbolic of how much room there is to get the message further, officially. This suggestion does not solve anything but at least it allows us opportunity to prepare more robustly.

1.2. Community Power stations / Cafes: Most Malawians can not afford to have some sort of backup power supply. If “stations” existed where people can sit and work from when power fails them at home, this would serve a real need. I used to go to a hotel lounge until the hotel decided to seal up their power ports because too many people decided to do the same thing. It just was not worth it. The need is there and government or government-supported cafes or venues could try and meet this need. The goal is to keep people productive.

2. Cost of Internet access

The cost of internet connectivity is still too high for the average Malawian. Since virtually 100% of my work is remote, this like availability of electricity is a factor that affects me significantly. I am also not alone: many people had to start working from home because of the pandemic. Globally, workers that have reliable and affordable internet access had a much easier transition than those from countries like Malawi that have high internet costs for end-users. Currently, the cost of 1GB of data on one provider in Malawi is K2500 (roughly $3.30) for a 24hour valid bundle and K3,500 ($4.70) for a 31day valid data bundle. More than one fellow subscriber has lamented the 24hr expiring bundles. It is particularly painful to have remaining data disappear upon that 24hour or 7-day limit.

Regardless, I am not in the camp that believes our current internet service providers MUST reduce their rates. I am in the camp that this administration should make things more competitive:

2.1. Incentivize new telecom/internet service providers to do business in Malawi. Whether that means both improving our scoring on the Doing Business Index as a nation or also specifically looking at the factors that put off players from entering the Malawi market e.g. high taxation rates etc. I think this is the only way that Malawians will get better value for their money when it comes to data. Existing operators will have to sit and consider where or if they can afford to compete. New players will attempt to woo potential customers like me. When it comes to data cost it is very hard to be a loyal customer so the best value product will have to win. Best value in terms of quality, cost, usage policies, and customer care.

So, if the ministry of Information wanted to really wow us Malawians, this is the place to do it. I imagine this is one of the main overlooked areas that could (but probably won’t) help create new jobs in Malawi if data cost was cheaper.

3. Internalizing funds easily from abroad

The loss of Forex is an understandable concern and has been for Malawi for a mighty long time. However, internalizing funds (amounts from platforms like Paypal or Stripe) should not be so hard. A solution to this could help Malawians in their pursuit of certain opportunities that only or mainly use Stripe or Paypal for merchant servicing. I am pretty sure whole governments do not court these types of firms to get them to extend their global coverage but why not try that anyway? Without local home-grown solutions, the government courting service providers like Transferwise.com, Paypal, or Stripe to extend their services to Malawi is not only in the best interest of every productive Malawian but could help increase Malawi’s GDP to some extent. Even a nominal extent would not be a loss. Without government lobbying for Malawi’s inclusion in such services, then Malawians have to find alternative solutions e.g. Payoneer or wait for local solutions to sprout up that bridge this gap.

Why is this incredibly important?

As of now, the world is earning money online. Artists sell their paintings, writers work on their craft. Accountants do company books for firms they have never met. Sound engineers making beats for indie films. Nurses providing remote support to personal care services. Virtual assistants serving bosses whom they will never meet. Digital nomads in their hundreds of thousands are surviving from remote work. This is a global economy. This is the gig economy yet only very few Malawians have tapped into this. The sad thing in the small percentage of Malawians engaging in this is not a lack of skill, interest, time, or whatever else.

We have exceptional yet unemployed professionals in our cities and districts. The issue sometimes is simply a lack of means to get paid on this platform. Many platforms solely use these merchant services to process their payments. Unfortunately, many of them have not yet catered to many parts of the developing world, such as Malawi. We can sit and wait for when they will one day decide to or government can make the first step forward.

For those that may be confused with what I stated above, let me briefly elaborate. If you are in Malawi, you can set up a free Paypal account, for example. If someone sends you money into your Paypal account, you may make purchases with that balance wherever PayPal is accepted. However, if you want to withdraw that money to Malawi, that option is not there for Malawi. If you are American or a Malawian based in America and happen to have an American bank account, then you would have to withdraw your Paypal balance to your American bank and from there withdraw your funds into your local Malawian bank account. Most simply do not have this option and end up having to trade their funds in Malawi with someone who can give them the equivalent locally in kwachas. Therefore as it is, internalizing funds into Malawi is problematic. Our listening government may be able to fix that.

This is crucial.

In Conclusion

If this article was just about Malawian entrepreneurs, I would have added another factor: access to finance. Instead, this article looks at the broader community of Malawians regardless of type of work that they do: whether self-employed or not.

I still have tremendous hope in our current government. I believe in our President’s leadership 100%. I doubt I will ever have this level of expectation and trust in a president ever again. I am hoping that people like me will learn to exercise patience for the things we need to accept will take time. I am also hoping that this administration will take up the challenge of using an approach that is unconventional for better results. I am hoping this administration will listen:

Dear Mister President, we listened: we are working hard (always have been actually). We are also trying to work smart. We just need a little help in getting better results. Can you please help us?

Signed

A Hardworking (occasionally smart) Young Malawian Woman :)

*score: I can not be the only Malawian who does not know what a score is. I know it was a numerical reference like “dozen”. I canot be bothered to Google because data is expensive..lol. :).

Want to discover more about Maclean Mbepula? Find her on Linkedin or here on Medium. She’s written 3 books (one in entrepreneurship from a grassroots perspective (“Challenge Accepted) and 2 poetry books which are available for purchase on Amazon. Feel free to support her work by becoming one of her patrons at Patreon.