Landlocked Malawi, which is currently ranked 164 out of 177 on the Human Development Index, is a low-income, food-deficient and least developed country with the majority of its population of 12 million living below the poverty line.
Poverty is both widespread and severe with a national poverty rate of 52 percent varying across regions. Over 86 percent of the people live in rural areas with low access to basic health and education services.
Landholdings are small, particularly in the densely populated south, leading to encroachment on marginal lands and increased erosion. These conditions, combined with the high incidence of HIV/AIDS (currently estimated at 12 percent), make the poor highly vulnerable to effects of natural disasters and food insecurity.
They are trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and are excluded from participating effectively in development opportunities. Almost half of the children under the age of 5 are chronically malnourished.
Along with favourable weather, the government's fertilizer subsidy has contributed to surplus cereal harvests in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009. This year, the total cereal harvest was estimated at almost 3.9 million metric tons, resulting in a surplus of more than 1.2 million tons. These surpluses have allowed WFP to procure over 100,000 tons of food during the past three years within Malawi for use in its operations in the country and around southern Africa. Given the huge 2009 harvest, WFP is likely to purchase large amounts of cereals in Malawi once again over the coming months.
WFP Activities
WFP is working to connect farmers in Malawi to markets through the Purchase for Progress initiative. Learn more
A new PRRO began in January 2008, which intends to provide assistance to people who are food insecure due to the effects of natural disasters and HIV/AIDS. The operation targets vulnerable people affected by HIV/AIDS and those requiring therapeutic or supplementary feeding, and aims to help build the livelihoods of the most vulnerable through food-for-asset (FFA) activities.
As part of the PRRO’s nutrition interventions, WFP distributes food assistance in all districts of Malawi through 96 nutrition rehabilitation units (NRU). These units target severely malnourished children and their caretakers. Moderately malnourished children are fed every month, through supplementary feeding activities in 219 centres in the country.
WFP is also helping to strengthen nutritional education and the empowerment of beneficiaries through therapeutic feeding programmes by means of nutrition demonstration gardens. These gardens are in the process of being implemented by the Ministry of Health and Christian Health Association of Malawi with support from WFP in 20 NRUs around Malawi . The produce from these gardens will be used for cooking demonstrations, educational purposes, and as supplementary food for NRU caretakers.
In addition to the PRRO, WFP launched a new development project in January to provide food assistance to children in primary schools. The only activity is school feeding with the primary objective of enabling poor households to send their children to school where they will get nutritious meals and an education. Under this project, the number of pupils supported by school feeding has increased from 442,000 to 635,000.The number of schools has also increased from 489 to 679 in 13 districts.
WFP also continues to p rovide food assistance to refugees at Dzaleka Camp including the new arrivals at Karonga Transit Shelter, which is the main entry point for asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes regions. Initially 8,600 refugees were scheduled to receive food support each month . However, the actual number of refugees fed each month since December 2007 has increased considerably. Presently, WFP feeds about 12,000 refugees, mostly from Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Read more on WFP Malawi Operations Brief of June 2009.
