World Food Programme Fighting Hunger Worldwide

As the global coordinator for WFP’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) pilot, I visited Malawi in July to review the challenges facing smallholder farmers and how P4P might build on progress made to date. These are a few of my observations. 

Disaster risk reduction is a priority for WFP Malawi.  This means ensuring a sustainable food supply for communities living in disaster-prone areas. WFP is working to increase the resilence to climate-related and other shocks of some 98,000 people in seven districts so that they are better able to prepare for and respond to disaster. 

Helping small farmers connect to markets is one of the most effective things we can do to build communities free from hunger. That’s what the ground-breaking “Purchase for Progress” initiative has done in 20 countries around the world. Now in the fifth and final year of its pilot phase, here’s what five farmers who took part in it have to say about the experience.

With food prices high in Malawi's markets, many families are struggling to find enough to eat. A new programme by WFP is sending cash to the most vulnerable people through their mobile phones. This assistance enables them to buy more food and so keep hunger and malnutrition at bay.

Drought in parts of Malawi spelled disaster for farmers like Saukila who live from harvest to harvest, surviving on what they can grow. Fortunately other areas of the country were spared, leaving a surplus that WFP and its partners are using to assist communities hit by the drought.

WFP nutrition support helps improve the health of children under five as well of pregnant women and nursing mothers. More than 29,500 children are benefitting from  WFP's supplementary feeding programme at 338 government-run health centres across Malawi. The food rations treat malnutrition... and provide hope for mothers like Asiyileni Bwanali.

School meals do not only fill stomachs. They also attract students to school and help them to concentrate on their lessons. In the case of girls, they do even more. They can help prevent them from leaving school early and getting married before they are ready.

A cross-section of people, from VIPs to ordinary community members, got together on World Food Day in October to share lessons they had learned about how to make more nutritious food a part of their daily lives.

"Here I am, a changed and empowered woman” says Rosemary Kaphadzale. As member of the Chikwatula farming cooperative in Malawi, she was able to sell her surplus maize to WFP – and to use the proceeds to improve the life of her children.

Food assistance enables millions of people in southern Africa to cope with the impact of HIV/AIDS, high food prices and natural disasters. But with WFP facing an unprecedented budget shortfall, many risk losing this critical support.