Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) says it has supported 1.1 million households under the hunger response programme.
This was disclosed yesterday in Lilongwe at Kanengo, where the department was loading maize on a train to be transported to the Southern region for distribution.
The programme targets 1.265 million households with maize and cash transfers.
Dodma deputy director for disaster response Fyawupi Mwafongo said they have made significant progress in reaching the households affected by hunger.
“Maize is being transported to the affected areas, and distributions are ongoing. The whole program, as you recall, the hunger assessment impact projected a total of 5.7 million people to be at risk of hunger. And since we are targeting at the household level, we are looking at 1.2 million households, and so far, we have supported 1.1 million households,” he explained.
According to Mwafongo, Dodma is very much prepared as far as the distribution of maize is concerned, and ferrying maize through the railway is one of the preparedness they have put in place.
“We are trying to sort out the means of transporting the maize. So we are using both road transport as well as railway transport. And then, apart from that, we are also prepositioning in the hard-to-reach areas. So we have several preparedness actions that we are implementing to make sure we reach out to the vulnerable people in time, but also effectively,” he explained.
Mwafongo also noted that their target is to have every local council reached by the end of December, but the exercise will continue until March.
According to Mwafongo, they plan to transport 4000 metric tonnes by railway, and out of the 4000 metric tons, 2500 have already been shipped.
In his remarks, NFRA operations director Cosmas Pelekani said that so far, they have procured a total of about 83,000 metric tons. And out of that, 83,000 metric tons, about 16,960 have already been dispatched to Dodma for distribution to Malawians.
“Apart from the 16,960, we have also released 5874 metric tons to ADMARC for price stabilization. As NFRA I can assure you that we have enough maize in stock to assist people who have been affected by hunger in the country,” he explained.
Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee estimated that 5.7 million people are food insecure this year and need support during the lean season which starts from October to March.
