Joyce Banda Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====International relations==== During Mutharika's presidency, Malawi was left in a poor economic situation due to foreign relations under the [[Bingu wa Mutharika|Mutharika administration]]. Within the last year of Mutharika's presidency, Britain, the United States, Germany, Norway, the European Union, the World Bank, and the African Development Bank had all suspended financial aid. They had expressed concern about Mutharika's attacks on democracy domestically and his increasingly erratic policies. In March 2012, Mutharika told these foreign donors to "go to hell." He accused them of plotting to bring down his government.<ref name="Somerville">{{cite web |last=Somerville |first=Keith |title=Malawi: New president must build support and mend donor relations (analysis) |work=African Arguments |publisher=The Norwegian Council for Africa |date=10 April 2012 |url=http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/21370.html |access-date=20 April 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121027212215/http://www.afrika.no/Detailed/21370.html |archive-date=27 October 2012 |df=dmy }}</ref> Part of Banda's challenge as president was to restore diplomatic ties with the aid donors. She also had the challenge of restoring diplomatic ties with Malawi's neighbours like [[Mozambique]], and regional countries such as [[Botswana]]. Within the first week of her presidency, Banda launched a diplomatic offensive to repair Malawi's international relations.<ref name="JB"> {{cite web | last = Munthali | first = Kondwani | title = JB cleans up Capital Hill | work = [[The Nation (Malawi)]] | date = 11 April 2012 | url = http://www.malawitoday.com/news/124476-joyce-banda-starts-cleaning-capital-hill | access-date = 22 April 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130914030353/http://www.malawitoday.com/news/124476-joyce-banda-starts-cleaning-capital-hill | archive-date = 14 September 2013 | url-status = dead | df = dmy-all }} </ref> She spoke to [[Henry Bellingham (Norfolk MP)|Henry Bellingham]] of the United Kingdom's Foreign Office. He assured her that a new British [[envoy (title)|envoy]] will be sent "within the shortest time possible." She spoke to the United States Secretary of State [[Hillary Clinton]]. Clinton promised to resume discussions on the $350 million energy grant as soon as possible. Banda announced plans to speak to [[Baroness Ashton]] of the European Union's Foreign Affairs office and the Malawi's IMF Resident Representative, Ruby Randall. She and Zambian president [[Michael Sata]] had also conferred about resuming close working relations.<ref name="JB" /> At least partly to further please donors, Banda's administration also refused in June 2012 to host that July's [[African Union]] summit on the grounds that the AU had insisted that [[Sudan]]'s president [[Omar al-Bashir]] be given assurances that Malawi would refuse to serve the [[International Criminal Court]] arrest warrant against him; the Cabinet decided that such conditions were unacceptable.<ref>{{cite web | title = Malawi not to host summit after row over Sudan leader | work = [[BBC News]] | publisher = BBC | date = 8 June 2012 | url = https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18364947 | access-date =8 June 2012}}</ref> President Banda is named by Forbes as the 40th most powerful woman in the world, the highest African name on the list.<ref name="Forbes14"/> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page