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Malawi is one of the least developed countries in the world. But it spends 1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on research and development (R&D), making it have one of the highest ratios in Africa. The country has 93% of its population still lacking access to electricity, 47% of whom have improved sanitation, and one in four adults lacks any form of family planning.[1]
The country's economy grew annually by 5.6% on average from 2003 to 2013. This makes it the sixth-fastest-growing economy in the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Between 2009 and 2013, GDP per capita rose by 6%, from US$713 to US$755 in purchasing power parity.[2] It is projected that between 2015 and 2019, annual growth in GDP will range from 5% to 6%.[3] Malawi's ratio of donor funding to capital formation rose over the period 2007–2012.[2] The African continent plans to create an African Economic Community by 2028, which would be built on the main regional economic communities, including the SADC.
Malawi has one of the lowest levels of human development in the SADC. It is also one of three African countries that have been "making especially impressive progress for several Millennium Development Goals", along with Gambia and Rwanda, with regard to primary school net enrolment (83% in 2009) and gender parity at the primary school level.[1] Only 0.81% of students were enrolled in university by 2011. Although the number of students choosing to study abroad increased by 56% between 1999 and 2012, their proportion decreased from 26% to 18% over the same period. Malawi devoted 5.4% of its GDP to education in 2011. Of this, 1.4% of the GDP went to fund higher education. Between 2006 and 2012, the number of students enrolled in higher education almost doubled to 12,203.[2]
Malawi was ranked 107th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021, up from 118th in 2019.[4][5][6][7]