Malawi

Smallholder farmers are currently suffering the effects of a prolonged El Niño-induced drought. These drought conditions and other factors greatly reduced the national harvest, leading to the second consecutive year of deficit maize production. Meanwhile, economic conditions remain precarious with high inflation, high food prices and limited opportunity for income-earning work. Some 6.7 million people now need urgent food or cash support to tide them over to the next harvest, expected in March 2017.

Malawi’s food security crisis is made worse by a high HIV infection rate, which is the ninth highest in the world at 9.1 percent. The stunting (low height for age) prevalence rate among children under five is 37 percent. Apart from height, stunting also hinders brain development, school performance, immunity and health. A recent Cost of Hunger in Africa (COHA) study for Malawi found that 10.3 percent of Gross Domestic Product is lost annually due to the effects of stunting. 

WFP is working with the Government of Malawi and other partners to bring food assistance to the country’s most vulnerable people including thousands of refugees mostly from the Great Lakes and Horn of Africa region as well as – most recently – from Mozambique. Guided by the Sustainable Development Goals, with a particular emphasis on achieving Zero Hunger, WFP provides emergency food and cash assistance in the face of natural disasters such as the current drought, as well as delivers longer-term programmes designed to build the resilience of vulnerable communities and help break the cycle of hunger.