statistics

I was looking at some statistics the other day for Malawi and the area I am working in, Machinga. Mind boggling.

• According to a report by the World Bank, 6.7 million Malawians live below the national poverty line and “2.7 million Malawians, about one in every five people, lives in such dire poverty that they cannot even afford to meet the minimum standard for daily-recommended food requirement.” The poverty line: 16,165 Malawi Kwacha (MK) per person per year, or 44.3 MK per person per day (US$180/yr or US$0.50/day at the time of the report). The difference between the poor and the ultra-poor: living on 50 cents/day verses living on less than 30 cents/day!!
• I read in a report somewhere that the child mortality under age 5 is 250/1000, which is totally unbelievable, but then I read it again in a book the other day. I just checked and in the last 15 years, child mortality under 5 has decreased from 234 to 133 deaths per 1000 live births.
  
• In Machinga District 45% of the population aged 5 and over attended primary school, 3% attended secondary education or higher. 51% of the population has never attended school!! No wonder people are stuck in poverty.
• Before I came to Malawi I knew that 13% of Malawians were Muslims, but driving through this area there are Muslims and mosques everywhere. It turns out that the Machinga District has the highest proportion of Muslims in the country, in part because it was home to the former president who Muslim-friendly. And apparently there’s an Islamic Trust that determined to build a mosque at every 10km of road – that explains the very strong visible presence of Muslims here! Statistically, 35% are Christians, 62% are Muslims.