Food crisis
- Donors’ pledge has reached $45 million
- Money to be managed by donors themselves
Vice president Saulos Chilima has said development partners have so far pledged US$45 million (K25.6 billion) towards initiatives aimed at assisting about 2.8 million people that are facing hunger this year.
The pledges follow President Peter Mutharika’s appeal for the international community and well-wishers to help government with assistance towards those affected by food shortage.
Speaking during a press briefing at Kamuzu Palace in Lilongwe on the food security situation in the country before his departure to the United General Assembly (UNGA), Mutharika said government was ready to roll out food relief to food-insecure households from this month to March next year.
He said the Food Insecurity Response Plan, required US$146.378 million (K83.2 billion), as per results of the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) food insecurity report. The assessment was carried out between June 8 and July 2 this year after serious floods and drought that adversely affected food production.
According to Chilima, UK, USA, Brazil, UNICEF, Save the Children, Italy, WFP and Word Bank are among Development Partners that have pledged their support towards the food crisis.
Chilima said government, together with the donors, will do everything possible to help those in dire need of food.
However, he pointed out that the money that development partners are contributing will be managed by donors themselves and that the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) will only be coordinating.
“There is much political will in the current situation and that government will do anything possible to assist households that have been affected”, said Chilima.
Speaking when announcing its support to the hunger crisis, head of DFID, Jen Marshall, said Malawi’s food insecurity situation is the worst in history prompting DFID to swiftly line up food and cash assistance through food security clusters.
She said the coming in of UK and all UN and other development partnersto support the president’s call last week demonstrates their combinedcommitment to the food crisis.
In her remarks, WFP Country representative Coco Ushiyama said her organization from October 1, started its first distribution of food in T/A Ngabu’s area in Chikwawa and 844 households (4,642 people) were assisted with maize, pulses, Super Cereal cooking oil to last them a month.
She said to complement the humanitarian response, WFP requires funding to maintain its school meals programme and supplementary feeding programmes which are vital safety nets and help protect hard-won development gains during this time of increased food insecurity.
She however, said the situation could worsen especially duringrainy season as weather forecasters have predicted that there couldbe a heavy cyclone that will hit the country hard.
Said Ushiyama. “This might result to a double tragedy to Malawians asthe number of people who shall require food assistance could be morethan 2, 8 million”
In his remarks, Save the Children country director, Matthew Pickard, said MVAC estimates that 2,833,212 people will require humanitarian food assistance during the 2015/2016 consumption year for a period of 3 to
8 months starting from October 2015.
Pickard said this has prompted the consortium to intervene in 8 districts (Kasungu, Lilongwe, Nkhotakota, Dedza, Machinga, Mulanje, Mchinji and Nsanje.
