Malawi’s headline inflation rate has fallen for a seventh consecutive month, easing to 20.01 per cent in August from 20.83 per cent in July, according to data from the National Statistical Office analysed by Chifi Mhango, chief economist at Don Consultancy Group.
The rate has now declined 8.22 percentage points over the past year, from 28.23 per cent in August 2025, and 9.1 points from its October 2025 peak of 29.11 per cent.
The improvement, however, reflects a slower pace of price increases rather than falling prices, and masks a shift in the composition of inflationary pressure that complicates the outlook for monetary policy.
Food, which carries a 53.73 per cent weighting in the consumer price index, has driven the bulk of the disinflation.
Food inflation fell to 13.41 per cent in August from 36.07 per cent a year earlier — a 22.66 percentage point collapse reflecting improved supply conditions relative to last year’s shortages.
On a monthly basis, food inflation eased from 14.3 per cent in July to 13.4 per cent in August.
Non-food inflation, by contrast, has proved far stickier, easing only marginally to 31.8 per cent from 32.2 per cent.
Transport inflation stood at 47.42 per cent in August, housing, water and electricity at 34.59 per cent, clothing and footwear at 35.69 per cent, alcoholic beverages and tobacco at 31.89 per cent, health at 25.28 per cent, and restaurants and hotels at 24.66 per cent.
Only recreation and culture (8.49 per cent), education (15.04 per cent) and communication (18.22 per cent) remained in single or moderate double digits.
Mhango cautioned that the character of Malawi’s inflation problem is evolving rather than resolving.
A year ago pressure was concentrated in food; today it sits in non-food essentials — transport, energy, housing and health — categories that feed directly into production and distribution costs and carry a heightened risk of second-round effects through wages and business....
