After the recent blazing success of Malawi’s national netball team at the Netball World Cup in Sydney Australia, I can’t help  but feel very proud of what the girls have achieved. It’s incredible…

To this end, even though the Malawi netball team is not as well resourced as some of the other teams they are playing against, or will play against, the team has done incredibly well, beating Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Uganda.

I believe talent can be harnessed even in the most difficult circumstances, although African leaders need to take sport, and in particular initiatives involving young people a lot more seriously. More resources should be dedicated towards developing sporting teams that can compete on the international arena. It’s not going to be easy, but as the Queens have shown, it is achievable.

Who will fund it I hear you say?

Well, they could run a lottery scheme to raise funds, alternatively the Government of Malawi could set aside a budgetary allocation specifically for sports such as netball (if they don’t do so already). They could appeal to charities and the international community to help, although I’d rather they use crowdfunding as an alternative, but my point is there are many ways of raising such finances.

The real challenge is ensuring that there is transparency and proper accountability of the funds, since it is well-known that in sports like football a lot of misappropriation goes on.

Ask yourself, how many potential Serena Williams does Malawi have, maybe in the urban areas, maybe  in rural areas of Malawi? How many potential Usain Bolts do we have, how many potential Tiger Woods do we have, how many potential sporting champions are just waiting to be discovered, waiting to be given a chance – out of a population of 14 million?

Without a doubt, there is undiscovered talent out there. And a lot more needs to be done to find and support these people. The government of Malawi should endeavour to take the lead in this exercise.