Edda Ella Chitalo

Edda Ella Chitalo (born 1932) is a Malawian teacher and politician. She was the Parliamentary Secretary for Health and later a minister with a number of portfolios.

Life Edda Chitalo was born on 12 October 1932 at Mlanga Village in Blantyre, and raised in the Blantyre Mission established by the Church of Scotland. She attended primary school at Blantyre Girls' School, completing the Standard V examination in 1947. After further study at the Henry Henderson Institute and the girls' school, she passed the Primary School Leaving Certificate Examination in 1949. She continued at the Women's Teacher Training College, where her mother and grandmother had been taught by Miss Beck. She qualified as a teacher in 1951. In the early 1980s Chitalo was expelled from the Malawi Congress Party. Forced to give up her parliamentary seat, she retired from active politics for several years. From 1994 to 1996 she was Minister of State for Women's and Children's Affairs. She was among Malawi's delegation to the 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing. After briefly being Minister of Community Development and Social Welfare in 1996, she was Minister of Physical Planning and Surveys in 1996–97. Between 1997 and 2003 she was a Minister of State in the Office of the President and in the Cabinet responsible for Human Resources Management and Development.