Adult literacy rate in Malawi
Adult literacy rate in Malawi was 70.2% in 2020, according to UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Adult literacy rate in Malawi, 1987 to 2020
All 5 values
| Period | % |
|---|---|
| 2020 | 70.2 |
| 2018 | 76.7 |
| 2017 | 72.8 |
| 1998 | 64.1 |
| 1987 | 48.5 |
Rankings
Definition
People aged 15 and over who can both read and write, with understanding, a short simple statement about their everyday life, as a percentage of the population aged 15 and over. UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
UIS figures from censuses, household surveys and UIS model estimates. Most high-income countries stopped measuring literacy decades ago, so they have no value; a missing value is not a rate of 0 or 100. Countries report in different years, so a ranking for one year covers only some countries.
How to cite
Source: UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS). Literacy rate, adult total, % of people ages 15 and above (SE.ADT.LITR.ZS). Retrieved through World Bank World Development Indicators (data.worldbank.org). https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.ADT.LITR.ZS. Retrieved 2026-10-12. Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. UIS does not endorse Invokely or this use of the data.Use this data in your AI agent
Invokely serves this figure to AI assistants through MCP and to code through a REST API, with the source and citation attached. Ask your assistant:
What is the latest adult literacy rate in Malawi? Cite the source.
get_value {"indicator":"literacy_rate_adult","place":"mw"}
GET https://invokely.ai/api/v1/value?indicator=literacy_rate_adult&place=mwQuestions
What is the adult literacy rate in Malawi?
Adult literacy rate in Malawi was 70.2% in 2020, according to UNESCO Institute for Statistics.
Where does this figure come from?
UNESCO Institute for Statistics. Literacy rate, adult total, % of people ages 15 and above (SE.ADT.LITR.ZS). Retrieved by Invokely on 2026-10-12.
What was the highest adult literacy rate in Malawi?
76.7% in 2018, the highest value since 1987 in this series.