Malawi earns £2m donation from Scotland

Published on Monday 13 February 2012 00:00

The Scottish Government is to donate almost £2 million to a climate-change programme aimed at providing sustainable, reliable electricity supplies in rural areas of Malawi.

The culture minister, Fiona Hyslop, said the Malawi Renewable Energy Acceleration Programme had been awarded more than £1.7m over three years to push forward the “climate justice” agenda by tackling poverty and climate change.

The programme is lead by Strathclyde University, who are providing research technology and training. A previous scheme in Malawi overseen by the university has delivered seven solar energy systems to schools, teachers’ homes, and health centres. In one school solar energy provided evening lighting for 180 pupils.

Ms Hyslop said: “We are working hard to help Malawians help themselves. The Scottish Government is a pioneer in climate justice and climate-change mitigation is at the heart of our agenda – this initiative supports both of those objectives.”

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Peter Nkosi

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 05:06 PM

#3 Logie88, #8 Mark Bishop There will be very little cash left over for anybody's back pocket, most of the £1.7 million going to Strathclyde University and for the purchase of equipment outside Malawi. So it is true that while Malawi will benefit from the project, so too will First World countries. Why did you suppose that all of the money would disappear into a corrupt official's back pocket? What do propose that Malawi does in order to earn your money? Google for "Support to Fuel Malawi Renewables Push", or you should find it at www.vadvert.co.uk. There are more details about the project than in this brief Scotsman article, and that is where I see that most of the funds will be spent outside Malawi.

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13

Peter Nkosi

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 at 05:04 PM

#1 BLOCKEM In June last year, Glagow Evening Trash won an award for one of their articles written during the Mhango campaign. ET bragged about the award, stating that "they are believed to have now been deported." That may be true, or it could just be ET trying to draw off the hounds from the Mhangos if they are still there in UK. The link to the ET brag will look a bit like www.eveningtimes.co.uk.news.editor-s-picks.precious-story-wins-award-for-evening-times-writer..................................Do you still keep in touch with your friend Anne?

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12

korky

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 06:08 PM

You couldn't make it up. !!

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11

flyinngscott

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 02:03 PM

Post colonial guilt.

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10

Buford Van Stomm

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 01:47 PM

Breaking News...................................................................................... Malawi sends representative to Scotland to help fix our third world road network.....Joke Makonnel of Freetown will advise Keith Brown on road infrastructure developments in sub saharan africa.

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9

Buford Van Stomm

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 01:45 PM

Great stuff Barney the Dinosaur....what next........lets give ipads to the lost tribes of the amazon. What a monumentally dense amalgam of human and walrus dna Hyslop is.

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8

Mark Bishop

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 12:28 PM

I give up. I really do. We are drowning in a sea of debt and we are giving money away? Our own roads are third world, can't we fix those first please? We've just been informed that our own electricity pylons and electricity system needs replacing to cope with all the renewable wind farm electricity we are hopefully going to produce. Can we fix that first please? Or could we use the money to bring down the cost of our own disgracefully high electricity prices so that our pensioners can keep warm without fear of unpayable bills? I sincerely doubt that anybody from this government is going out there to Malawi to *police* these funds. They will disappear into the back pocket of some corrupt official I suppose.

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7

man-o-field

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 12:21 PM

Sustainable, reliable electricity supplies for Malawi. It is significantly unlikely that we, in the future, will have such in Scotland. Nor adequate!

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6

searchanddestroy

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 10:14 AM

Again more misplaced largesse by blinkered politicians. We have sent billions in foreign aid to places like India (which has a space programme, more billionaires than Scotland will ever dream of, vast resource, double digit growth etc) to keep them as friends of the UK. France gave them nothing. When they wanted a fighter jet who di they buy it from..... that's right France. We also somewhat stupidly continue to hand money to corrupt broken regimes where the top man pockets the lot and gives nothing to the people. We refuse to do business in Burma (we even call it Myanmar as if that affects the people there!) instead Chinese, Thai, Russian companies get right in there and place themselves perfectly to exploit all the rubies, oil, gas etc. as they have in Libya, Iraq et al. The west ..UK..Scotland can't afford to take the moral high ground any longer. If it contiues to do so it will end up as a 3rd world country. when the shoe is on the other foot China, India etc will not be doling out free money to the peasants. Although 2 mil for a government is not really a lot of money the chances are that it was borrowed in the first place so will end up costing far more. Spend UK money in the UK these token gestures are somewhat akin to Miss World stating her ambitions are "to solve world poverty and bring peace to the middle east" Nice idea in principle. But has no chance of success.

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5

BLOCKEM

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 09:57 AM

2 albanman .... So easy to refer to someone as an idiot. You should have given an explanation as to why you think I am an idiot - are you capable? - I think not. Your very brief comment shows you haven’t worked at all hard to be an idiot, obviously comes naturally to you. Tea break over, back to work, catch you (out) later. Ad-i-os, Id-i-ot.

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4

WJohn

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 09:47 AM

The modern equivalent of "Let them eat cake." Lighting at school at night is very useful. So long as the pupils get peace and quiet to sleep through the day.

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3

Logie88

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 09:15 AM

That'll be Malawi where the president bought himself a private jet and built a new presidential mansion which he then refused to live in because he was afraid of ghosts. In what sense has Malawi "earned" this money?

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2

albanman

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 08:00 AM

#1 Do you work at being an idiot, or does it come naturally?

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1

BLOCKEM

Monday, February 13, 2012 at 01:17 AM

I wonder whatever happened to those two Malawians, Florence and her daughter "Precious" Mhango. Y’know, those two who had thousands and thousands of ££££’s spent on them in doomed-to-failure attempts to keep them in Glasgow. Remember the oft said claims, "Florence and Precious will not abscond" - only to be followed by doctor’s sick notes (to avoid signing on at the UKBA) - to be taken to a safe, illegal house (to avoid legal deportation) Having absconded, I wonder which part of the UK the two Malawians are now living in illegally, still costing us thousands and thousands of ££££’s.

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