Malawi Archives - World Food Program USA

Lilongwe, Malawi – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a $9.5 million (about MK7.7 billion) contribution from the United States Government, through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), to provide emergency assistance to vulnerable households, support livelihoods of community members and strengthen capacity of national and local institutions to better address food security, disaster risk management and emergency responses in Malawi.

USAID has been supporting the U.N. World Food Programme in Malawi since 2017, helping 382,000 food insecure small-scale farmers improve their productivity, food security and resilience to shocks. Farmers have built or maintained assets to improve their livelihoods, including community gardens and small-scale irrigation farming, creating healthier natural environments, reducing risks and impacts of shocks, and strengthening resilience to natural disasters. Through this assistance, the U.N. World Food Programme will continue helping 382,000 hungry Malawians buy food and other basic needs and support them to attain sustainable livelihoods.

Benoit Thiry, U.N. World Food Programme Country Director in Malawi, welcomed the resources and noted, “The U.S. Government continues to help in building the resilience of vulnerable communities in Malawi against climatic shocks and improve their food security. We are grateful to the U.S. Government’s investment in breaking the cycle of hunger in Malawi.”

In addition, the U.N. World Food Programme will also use this contribution to provide cash and/or food transfers to 42,000 refugees hosted at Dzaleka Camp. Lastly, the U.N. World Food Programme will use the contribution to strengthen capacity and transfer skills to national and local institutions involved in food security, nutrition, disaster risk management and emergency response.

“The U.S. Government is honoured to partner with the Government of Malawi and the U.N. World Food Programme to support Malawians and refugees as they work to increase their food security and better manage seasonal shocks such as drought and flooding. Around the world, USAID is committed to helping families and individuals produce and purchase reliable, quality food,” said Dr. Catie Lott, USAID/Malawi Mission Director.

The U.S. is one of the largest donors to the U.N. World Food Programme in Malawi, contributing $56.4 million (about MK45.4 billion) since 2017 to respond to emergencies, support refugees and break the cycle of hunger. The U.N. World Food Programme is supporting the Government of Malawi through a range of programs, including emergency food assistance and cash-based transfers, nutritional support and resilience-building.

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About WFP

The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters, and the impact of climate change. Our efforts focus on responding to emergencies while strengthening the Government’s social protection system; preventing chronic malnutrition; providing locally produced school meals; and building resilience of rural communities to be more self-reliant and equipped to face climatic shocks.

Read more about WFP’s resilience program: https://insight.wfp.org/5-solutions-to-fight-hunger-cc924480ac99

About USAID

USAID works to advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world. It is the U.S. government’s lead agency that provides international development and disaster assistance through partnerships and investments that save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance, and help people emerge from humanitarian crises and progress beyond assistance.

Read more at: www.usaid.gov/malawi

Lilongwe, Malawi – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today welcomes a generous contribution of $10.3 million from the United States Government, through USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA), to provide emergency assistance to vulnerable households and support the livelihoods of communities in Malawi.

The U.N. World Food Programme will use part of this contribution ($7 million) to support 85,000 food-insecure households in the districts of Balaka, Chikwawa, Machinga, Mangochi, Nsanje, Phalombe, and Zomba through the construction or rehabilitation of assets that strengthen their resilience to climatic shocks. USAID/BHA has been supporting the U.N. World Food Programme’s Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) programming since 2017. This new contribution will enable targeted households to create productive community assets, such as fish farming ponds, micro-irrigation schemes, and flood-control dykes, among others, while they receive cash transfers to cover immediate food needs.

The contribution ($3 million) will also enable emergency food assistance to food-insecure households in the country. The Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC), a government-led committee tasked with providing timely early warning information on food insecurity, estimates that 2.6 million people, nearly 15 percent of the country’s population, will face acute food insecurity during the 2020/2021 Lean Season. USAID/BHA contributions ($350,000) will also support MVAC functions in the coming months.

“The U.S. Government continues to help the people of Malawi avert hunger, build their resilience and improve their food security. We appreciate the U.S. Government’s support for our efforts to help break the cycle of hunger in Malawi,” says Benoit Thiry, U.N. World Food Programme Malawi Country Director.

“The increasing risk of climatic shocks to poor, rural households worsens their hunger situation. The U.S. Government has partnered with the U.N. World Food Programme to help poor households mitigate, manage, and endure the impacts of such shocks,” says Catie Lott, Mission Director for USAID/Malawi.

The U.S. is one of the largest donors to the U.N. World Food Programme in Malawi, contributing $46.9 million since 2017 to emergency response, support for refugees, and efforts to break the cycle of hunger. The U.N. World Food Programme is supporting the Government of Malawi through a range of programs, including emergency food assistance and cash-based transfers, nutritional support, and resilience-building.

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About the U.N. World Food Programme | The U.N. World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change. Our efforts focus on responding to emergencies while strengthening the Government’s social protection system; preventing chronic malnutrition; providing locally produced school meals; and building resilience of rural communities to be more self-reliant and equipped to face climatic shocks.

Read more about the U.N. World Food Programme’s resilience program here.

About USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) | Helping people affected by disasters and other humanitarian emergencies is at the core of what USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) does every day, all over the world. It reflects our values as Americans, demonstrates our global leadership, and makes the world a safer place. BHA leads and coordinates the U.S. Government’s disaster assistance efforts overseas. We also support food insecure refugees fleeing war, violence, or persecution.

Read more about BHA here.

Lilongwe – The United States Government has contributed $3 million to the emergency response to Cyclone Idai in Malawi. The funds, provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Food for Peace, will support immediate food needs in the worst-affected areas of the country. They will cover cash-based assistance to flood-affected people as well as early recovery efforts.

“The US is committed to supporting Malawians who’ve been affected by the floods and fast-tracking recovery efforts,” USAID Malawi Director Littleton Tazewell said. “The US can count on the long-standing expertise of partners like WFP to provide essential assistance after this disaster.”

More than 860,000 people have been affected in 15 districts, according to the Department of Disaster Management and Preparedness (DoDMA). Some 60 died and more than 600 people were injured when the cyclone stuck Malawi last month. Nearly 87,000 displaced people are believed to be living in 173 camps.

“We’re thankful for the continuous support of the American people,” said WFP Malawi Country Director Benoit Thiry. “We’re working around the clock to assist people facing hardship. This timely contribution will enable WFP to step up cash assistance to people affected by the floods and begin early recovery activities.”

The U.S. funds will support the 2019 Floods Response Plan through the provision of cash-based transfers in the six severely affected districts of Machinga, Nsanje, Chikwawa, Phalombe, Chiradzulu and Zomba which have been declared national disaster sites. A total of 41,000 households will receive a monthly transfer of cash in line with prevailing market prices.

WFP’s Complementary Productive Asset Creation program is regarded as key to promoting early recovery from floods – it does this through asset creation and rehabilitation work, providing affected households with cash-based transfers for the purchase of food and agricultural inputs. The approach is designed to support vulnerable households and enable them to rebuild their livelihoods while strengthening their capacity to withstand extreme weather events.

The United States is the largest donor to WFP humanitarian and development programs in Malawi, contributing over $28 million in 2018/2019.

About WFP | The United Nations World Food Programme – saving lives in emergencies and changing lives for millions through sustainable development. WFP works in more than 80 countries around the world, feeding people caught in conflict and disasters and laying the foundations for a better future. For more information about WFP and its work in Malawi visit: www1.wfp.org/countries/malawi or follow us on Twitter @WFP_media or @WFP_Malawi

About USAID | On behalf of the American people, USAID promotes and demonstrates democratic values abroad and advances a free, peaceful and prosperous world. In support of America’s foreign policy, the U.S. Agency for International Development leads the U.S. Government’s international development and disaster assistance through partnerships and investments that save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance, and help people emerge from humanitarian crises and progress beyond assistance.

BEIRA/MAPUTO – At the end of a two-day visit to Mozambique, the Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme, David Beasley, today said the international community must step up support to victims of the recent cyclone and flooding that have devastated large areas of the country.

After arriving Tuesday in Beira, which was struck by Cyclone Idai on March 14, hitting the port city of half a million people, Beasley overflew the nearby town of Buzi – which had been all but submerged by raging floodwaters – and met survivors receiving airlifted WFP assistance in the isolated village of Guara Guara.

“These people’s lives have been devastated, they have no livelihoods now, they’ve lost their homes, they’ve lost their farms, they’ve lost their crops, they’ve lost loved ones. And they’re going to need help at least for the next six to 12 months to get back on their feet,” Beasley said. “We need the international community to rally behind the victims of this storm with major financial support, so WFP can help the survivors of Cyclone Idai.”

An estimated 400,000 hectares of crops – primarily corn – were washed away just weeks ahead of the main April–May harvest. Other key sources of income, like livestock and fisheries, have also been badly affected.

Victims will need sustained support until they can get back on their feet – in the case of subsistence farmers, until the next main harvest in mid-2020. “We need to work together with the Government of Mozambique and the communities to ensure rehabilitation is done in a way that will prevent this devastation happening again, build better everything: houses, schools and health centers to stand the shocks,” added Beasley.

The disaster has demonstrated how vulnerable communities are to climate shocks and will inevitably push up already high malnutrition rates.

Since the cyclone hit, WFP has provided food assistance to more than 150,000 people, intends to reach half a million in the coming weeks, and, as soon as possible, all 1.7 million people urgently in need of food.

Displaced cyclone victims sheltering in scores of schools and churches in Beira and surrounding areas have received easy-to-prepare fortified blended food. Sixty-six tons of high energy biscuits airlifted into the country have been dropped by helicopter to people stranded by the floodwaters.

With 86,000 metric tons of commodities needed in the next three months, WFP is procuring large quantities of cereals, vegetable oil and fortified blended foods elsewhere in southern Africa, and shipping and trucking them into Mozambique. As conditions permit, WFP will increase local procurement.

As lead of the global humanitarian logistics “cluster” that helps coordinate the relief effort, WFP has deployed to Beira three MI-8 transport helicopters and a freight aircraft to support the broader humanitarian response. As lead of the emergency telecommunications cluster, WFP has been working to re-establish vital networks that can accelerate the response by government and humanitarian agencies.

Almost 60 additional WFP staff have been deployed to Mozambique, and 45 more are on the way: emergency coordinators, air operations managers and programming, logistics and telecommunications experts.

WFP requires $140 million for the next three months.

On Wednesday in Maputo, Beasley met President Nyusi, key government ministers and donor representatives. “In these last two days, I was heartbroken by the devastation, but I also saw courage and determination on the faces of the Mozambican people”, he said. “The terrible destruction cannot dampen their spirits. WFP will stay with them, scaling up to help as many as possible.”

“I urge the international community to respond quickly and generously, because lives are truly in the balance right now.”

Photos from WFP’s Mozambique flood response are available for download here: https://spaces.hightail.com/receive/QgtWAv3eqJ

For new video footage, contact Jonathan Dumont (jonathan.dumont@wfp.org)

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The United Nations World Food Programme saves lives in emergencies and changes lives for millions through sustainable development. WFP works in more than 80 countries around the world, feeding people caught in conflict and disasters, and laying the foundations for a better future. Follow us on Twitter @wfp_media, @wfp_mozambique

For more information please contact (email address: firstname.lastname@wfp.org):

Gerald Bourke, WFP/Beira, Mob/whatsapp +27 82 90 81 417

Deborah Nguyen, WFP/Beira, Mob: +258 86 505 6300 / whatsapp +33 652 89 76 44

Jane Howard, WFP/Rome, Tel. +39 06 6513 2321, Mob. +39 346 7600521

Herve Verhoosel, WFP/Geneva, Mob. +21 798428057

Francis Mwanza, WFP/London, Tel. +44 (0)20 3857 7411, Mob. +44 (0)7968 008474

Challiss McDonough, WFP/Washington, Tel. +1-202-653-1149, Mob. +1-202-774-4026

Steve Taravella, WFP/New York, Tel. +1-646-556-6909, Mob. +1-202-770-5993