Malawi has issued an appeal for K11 billion support to be used for the fight against hunger which has hit 2.6 million people across the country.
The Department of Disaster Affairs Management (DODMA) and the World Food Program (WFP) have appealed to Malawi’s partners including the private sector to provide technical and financial support to the Lean Season Food Insecurity Programme.
According to a statement released yesterday and signed by DOMA Commissioner James Chiusiwa and WFP Country Director Benoit Thiry, DODMA and its humanitarian partners have teamed up to address the needs of the affected communities through the program.
The program requires USD64.4 million (about K48.6 billion). A total of USD50.2 MILLION (about K37.8 billion) has already been made available and now Malawi has a gap of USD14.2 billion to implement the programme.
The program is aligned to the National Resilience Strategy which aims to tackle root causes of food insecurity and nutrition insecurity such as over-dependence on rain-fed agriculture and lack of crop diversification.
“The increasing risk of climatic shocks worsens a vicious cycle of food insecurity. The Government is committed to help vulnerable households mitigate, manage and recover from the impact of the shocks,” said Chiusiwa.
The 2.6 million people who will receive support include people in rural areas which experienced low levels of crop production and people in urban areas who experienced loss of income due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The response started in December and will run up to March. DODMA is targeting 28 district and four cities of the country while WFP is targeting 12 districts.
“WFP is grateful for international donors’ support to the response. The support we received will help the Government of Malawi to reach some of the country’s most vulnerable people, who risk slipping further into hunger,” said Thiry.
