Development is said to be subject to value judgment but at least it must include an element of improvement and making the living standards of people better. It must be perceptible enough that there has been a positive change that is both in physical and abstract terms. It must serve to at least make available the very basic needs of life to the people that need them.
Todaro (1997) p.18 asserts that development is both a physical reality and a state of mind in which society has through some combination of social, economic and institutional processes secured the means for obtaining a better life .So development is expected to raise the living standards of people including the provision of better education, more employment opportunities and the provision of quality heath services
It can therefore be seen that development and aspects of health are inseparable. For a country to develop there is need to pay particular attention to the health sector and if it accelerates then it means that a particular part in the development process is achieved.
Poverty can be said to be a consequence of underdevelopment among other things. Poverty is defined in absolute terms as depending on US$ 1 per day/person, and in relative terms it is said to be the lack of very basic needs such as food, shelter, and clean water ,all of which are essentials for a healthy living. This only shows that poverty reduction has to be thought of both in terms of development and health wise, for they are all interlinked concepts as we have seen.

To begin with, in Malawi, only 54% of the population has access to clean and safe water and only 40% of the population has access to health care. About 40% to 65% of the population lives below the poverty line.
Malawi has got the second highest death rate pegged at 22.4 people dying out of every thousand people at every point in time. Infant mortality is at 142 per1000 births. Again Malawi has the worlds highest population per Doctor at 50,000,(world Bank,1997) Illiteracy rates are pegged at 58%for females and 28% for males.
It can therefore be seen from the above information that poverty reduction in Malawi cannot be achieved by just concentrating on the naked term of poverty, but that it has to be dealt with an intersectoral approach.
The issues raised above require and necessitates the involvement of the economic, education, political ,social and the health sectors in the combat against poverty. It is only when people have information that they will act in a particular manner, and in this case, when people are knowledgeable about the various dimensions of poverty and that it can only be dealt with using a multisectoral approach that they are going to positively contribute to the development process of their community and thereby fostering a concerted effort for national development.
Poverty has been defined in a number of contexts, for example as a lack of basic human needs, that is the deprivation requirements mainly materials for meeting the basic needs including education, shelter, adequate food, portable water and sanitation facilities, employment opportunities and more importantly access to health services. Let us look at how each of the sectors are affected and contribute to the overall goal of combating against the problem of poverty.

Beginning with the education sector, development is a process that moves in stages .It starts from an individual development process, then family and then community, on to the community and then to national development and the chain continues. So there is first of all need for self-development and this comes about through training and education. It is when people are educated that they are able to earn more from employment as they will be able to have better employment opportunities and can also be self employed .An increase in income thus leads to an increase in money allocated to health investment that is auto investment in health. When people are educated, they know the right combination of foodstuffs to for them to have a balanced diet, which is essential for a health living, they know and realize the need for health care and services. So it is only the health people that are able to contribute positively and with more effort to development. If a breadwinner is in ill health he/she will not be able to provide for his/her family and again the little income that he/she may have may all or substantially be spent on covering health costs instead of improving the living conditions of his/her family. The issue of sustainability here is tackled in that once parents are educated, chances are high that their children will also be educated and vice versa.
So if we have an educated parent population it means that a spontaneous link in the family cycle.
In my own words, I would define sustainable development as the utilization of the available resources efficiently and effectively to uplift the lives of people and enabling a particular community to be self dependent, without jeopardizing prospects for the development strategies of the future generations. Sustainable poverty reduction is only possible with sustainable development because once the resources, especially those that are naturally provided, are depleted then that is an onset of negative development especially so for a country like Malawi which mainly relies on natural resources for a huge part of its economic activities to take place. This means low income for the nation as a whole and consequently low incomes for the individual citizens of the country and their families. This in turn will cause a reduction in the funds available for family maintenance in terms of health services and this will lead to a poor and unhealthy population that is not so productive and this will cause a commencement of a poverty cycle. So there is a two-way relationship between poverty and development.

Political governance and development policies .The Malawi poverty reduction strategy would be irrelevant and unless there is political, bureaucratic and popular will to implement it. There has to be good public expenditure management and fiscal discipline. Government has to take the leading role in promoting and creating an environment that the poor have to be involved in the decision making process so that the public institutions and systems protect and benefit the poor. Funds have to be handled in a transparent manner so that the limited resources theater there should be channeled to priority activities with impact on poverty reduction. When there are high levels of corruption, it reduces funds available for development and delivery of pro-poor services. The development policies that the government has to adopt have to be human capital intensive. This will serve to reduce the unemployment levels and thus distributing out funds to many people and therefore making them more able to take good care of themselves and their families and so enabling them to lead an improved healthy life. But this will also serve to involve the masses in the decision making process. Political will and commitment should promote the development of the core health interventions, particularly in terms of …necessary resources available for their implementation.

The economic development path that a country adopts must be pro growth while at the same time being pro poor. There is need to strike a balance because it is possible to have pro growth strategy while leaving the poor unattended to and viceversa.It is emphasized that the poverty reduction strategy should not be done for the poor but with the poor, that is an element of involvement.

Growth that benefits the poor involves offering the poor an opportunity to generate their own incomes.
When the farmers produce, they must have access to inputs for agricultural production; they must have adequate access to markets for the goods and services that the poor can sell.

Improving the quality of life of the most vulnerable. Some sectors of the population need direct assistance to improve their living standards. Its overall goal is to ensure that the quality of life of the most vulnerable is improved and maintained at an acceptable level by providing moderate support transient poor and substantial transfers to the chronically poor. Under this strategy, there is the targeted input program. This assists malnourished children as well as lactating and pregnant mothers. This aims at increasing the health status of the population so as to reduce child mortality. There is also Targeted Input Program, which will help to enhance productivity of capital constrained poor by developing distribution of free agricultural inputs.
Human development is another strategy of Malawi poverty reduction strategy .A healthy and educated population leads to increased productivity. Its goal is to develop human capital to participate fully in social –economic development of the country. This is done through provision of basic education to the masses.