Lessons for Malawi

As someone who has been about in Africa and an African myself, I could not stop comparing Shanxi to most of Africa. There are Shanxis all over Africa, so much tourism potential, but just not tapped or fully tapped.

Most African governments depend on commodities to get by, but year in year out the prices of these commodities keep fluctuating and most of the gains go to wealthy Europeans.

Take Malawi, officially the poorest country in terms of per-capita GDP according to the World Bank, for example. Malawi relies on tobacco exports to get up to 80 percent of its foreign exchange.

But Malawi has one of the purest and biggest freshwater lakes with one of the highest diversity of fish species in the world; it has all of the famed “Big Five” animals, and has one of Africa’s highest mountains, pristine cultures, exciting trails and ancient historical sites.

Why is Malawi not a tourism powerhouse yet? Well, she has the same issues as the Shanxi of yesterday: bad roads, poor publicity, too much focus of tobacco by government…

As I sat in a cozy hotel deep in Wutai Mountain enjoying wild rabbit for dinner, I could not help but wonder why my Malawi or Africa cannot engage the Shanxi gear.