Situation
-
Malawi is a landlocked, low-income country with over 80 percent of the population consisting of smallholder farmers and nearly 70 percent of people living below the international poverty line, according to the World Bank. Malawi also hosts more than 37,000 refugees, primarily from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burundi, Rwanda and Mozambique, the majority of whom are dependent on humanitarian assistance to meet their daily food needs.
-
The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee estimates that 3.3 million Malawians, including nearly 1.8 million in the southern region, will require humanitarian food assistance during the October-to-March lean season—when food stocks are typically at their lowest.
-
According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), poor households in central and southern areas affected by prolonged dry spells and pest infestations will likely experience Stressed (IPC 2) levels of food insecurity through January 2019, with the worst-affected households facing Crisis (IPC 3) levels of food insecurity.*
Response
-
USAID’s Office of Food for Peace (FFP) works with the UN World Food Program (WFP) in Malawi to distribute food assistance to refugees through general food distributions sourced from local and regional markets. Additionally, WFP carries out food-for-asset activities. In exchange for a household member helping to create or rehabilitate community assets that support resilience from recurrent shocks, families receive assistance in meeting basic household food and nutrition needs.
-
Through its partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), FFP conducts long-term development programming targeting nearly 250,000 vulnerable households to reduce chronic malnutrition and food insecurity and build resilience to environmental and economic shocks in Chikwawa, Nsanje and rural Blantyre—three of the most food-insecure, chronically malnourished and disaster-prone districts of southern Malawi. Furthermore, the FFP partnership with CRS supports the Feed the Future initiative to help smallholder farmers improve their productivity and income in coordination with the Government of Malawi.
-
FFP also works with Project Concern International (PCI) to improve food security among 63,400 vulnerable households in southern Malawi’s Balaka and Machinga districts through a long-term development activity. PCI focuses on bolstering marketoriented agricultural production, improving the health and nutrition of children younger than 5 years of age and pregnant and lactating women, strengthening community disaster preparedness and increasing the resilience of vulnerable households.