By Linda Kwanjana
Malawi leader President Dr Lazarus McCarthy Chakwera , through the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) in collaboration with various development and humanitarian partners, has started providing food assistance.
The program is under the 2023-24 MVAC Lean Season Food Insecurity Response Programme and targets more than 4.4 million Malawians in all the 28 districts and four cities of the country.
Districts for the initial delivery of the AIP include Machinga, Mulanje, Mwanza, Neno, Nkhotakota and Ntcheu Districts. President Chakwera has been speaking that no one will die of hunger in Malawi.
An estimated 4.4 million Malawians are likely to face hunger in the 2023/24 consumption period, representing 22 percent of the country’s projected population of 19.6 million. Malawi Government committed K167.55 billion for support mechanisms.
The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (Mvac) annual food security assessment results shows that the current projection represents a 15 percent increase compared to the previous consumption period when 3.9 million people faced hunger.
The results came at a time there is maize scarcity on the market which has led some traders to sell a 50 kilogramme bag of the staple grain at prices ranging from K30 000 to K40 000.
Reads Mvac’s results: “In order to protect livelihoods, the vulnerable population will require humanitarian food assistance that has been estimated at 219,023 metric tonnes [MT] of maize with an estimated cash value of K167.55 billion.
“The food assistance will be required for a period ranging from two to six months.”
Out of the estimated food insecure population, 470 000 are from the four cities of Blantyre, Zomba, Lilongwe and Mzuzu while 3.9 million are from rural areas across the country.
The good news is that Government has already intervened and people are receiving maize while some are receiving cash.
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