Who’s Omelet? Linking Malawi’s Agricultural Sector to Global Value Chains

‘You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs’. This (in)famous maxim, variously attributed to Napoleon, Stalin and The Joker from Batman, has arguably found its way into development policies, which (in- or explicitly) subscribe to a pragmatic view of cost-benefit trade-offs (for very divergent views on this matter, see e.g. Jackson, 2016; Owusu, 2003). However, the questions of who’s eggs to break and who will get the omelet haunt economic development initiatives as a seemingly irresolvable paradox of generalized growth versus localized impact. Which it will be all comes down to the specifics of policy, just as policy makers continue to search for a way out of the dilemma – seeking to ensure that everyone can have their eggs and eat them too, as it were.