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Overview
In 2022 Malawi faced unexpected challenges, particularly flooding after tropical storm Ana, rising food prices and an economic crisis. The link between land degradation, climate change, and food security is evident in the country, putting an increasing strain on Government and development partners' resources. In this context, WFP supported vulnerable communities to prevent acute humanitarian impacts, recover from climate shocks, and adapt to the harsh reality of more frequent and intense natural disasters.
According to the 2022 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), 3.8 million people would be acutely food insecure during the 2022/2023 lean season (October 2022-March 2023), a 131 percent increase from the same period in 2021. In response, WFP complemented the Government's response by providing cash-based transfers to 364,000 people affected by food insecurity in the most-affected districts and expanding the national social protection system where possible. Due to funding constraints, WFP maintained 75 percent ration of its assistance to beneficiaries receiving cash assistance for emergency activities. Despite the reduced ration, the number of beneficiaries receiving cash-based transfers exceeded the planned amount owing to the increased responses in the year such as the increased number of refugees, the 2021/2022 lean season, the floods response, food assistance for assets and the 2022/2023 lean season which started early due to the severity of need.
Malawi hosts 56,000 asylum seekers and refugees from the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region. In 2022, WFP provided unconditional cash to 46,000 people living in Dzaleka refugee camp to buy food in the local markets. WFP also implemented livelihood support activities to enhance self-reliance for 300 people (60 percent refugees and 40 percent from the host community).
The global acute malnutrition prevalence for Malawi remains low, highlighting the fact that investments in nutrition are paying off. However, stunting prevalence - a sign of chronic malnutrition - remained high at 35 percent according to the 2022 IPC Chronic Food Insecurity Classification. In this context, WFP’s nutrition strategy focused on the prevention of undernutrition, particularly stunting and micronutrient deficiencies. Nutrition interventions were mainstreamed with school feeding and integrated resilience activities. WFP also worked with the Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS to strengthen local governance, leadership and management towards nutrition, and domestic resourcing for nutrition.
WFP reached 676,000 school children with healthy and diversified meals daily to encourage them to stay in school and learn better, whilst boosting agricultural production and market opportunities for 35,000 smallholder farmers who supplied 485 schools under the home-grown school feeding model. Schools provided a key market for smallholder farmers, with purchases taking place some 200 days per year. This allowed smallholder farmers, reliant on rain-fed agriculture, to diversify their crops and plan their sales over the course of the academic year.
Integrated resilience activities reached 500,000 people in the seven most shock-prone districts of Malawi and indirectly benefited entire communities. The approach yielded a wide range of benefits in restoring landscapes, increasing access to water, diversifying production and income sources, and supporting access to markets. In 2022, 3 million trees were raised for planting, 31,000 hectares of degraded land were rehabilitated and brought back to life, and 200 hectares are now farmed with solar irrigation. There has been an improvement in the proportion of communities reporting capacity to manage climatic shocks (over 90 percent).
WFP also supported the broader food systems in Malawi by working with Government food agencies to support preliminary assessments to strengthen the capacity of these agencies to respond to crises. In addition, WFP leveraged its expertise in supply chain to work with the Ministry of Health to strengthen public health supply chains and to better prepare for future health crises.
WFP supported the Government of Malawi in making progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), specifically SDG 2 (Zero Hunger) and 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) while aligning with national priorities as outlined in the Malawi Vision 2063 and its supporting policies.