National Defence College (NDC)-Malawi (Mw) is a leading national institute of excellence in defence, security, strategic, and development studies. The Malawi Defence Force established the National Defence College-MW (NDC-MW) in August 2023 to locally produce strategic leaders with a better understanding and knowledge of matters of national security in an international context for strategy development, policy formulation, and implementation by developing analytical skills and vision towards higher responsibility at the strategic leadership level, forging and building enduring bridges on friends and cooperation across domains, organisations, and countries.

The primary function of the NDC-MW is to train strategic leaders and conduct research, analysis, and strategic gaming to support the security requirements of Malawi and allied nations. The NDC-MW has the responsibility of developing and improving the intellectual capacity of senior military and government officials on a broader dimension of national and global security at a strategic level.

Contemporary threats to security concerns of any state encompass the broader dimension of socio-political, economic, technological, military, and environmental issues. As national security is no longer viewed only through military lenses but a wider, multi-dimensional perspective of human security, thus germinated the idea of establishing a higher institute of learning to train both senior military personnel and civilian leaders. The identification and timely solutions to these challenges and realities are therefore of great significance to the national security of any state and require the orchestration of all the national instruments of power: diplomacy, information, military, and economic (DIME), among others within the nation-state. To do this, NDC-MW analyses national security challenges and advances policy responses, strategies, and solutions.