Malawi | World Food Programme

Malawi is a small, landlocked country in sub-Saharan Africa with a rapidly expanding population.  Most livelihoods depend on rain-fed agriculture – making the population highly vulnerable to disasters, particularly droughts and cyclone-induced floods.

The country is facing a food crisis due to El Niño-induced drought. A long, dry spell in February 2024 affected 44 percent of the maize crop and left 5.7 million people acutely food insecure.

Millions are struggling, with families resorting to negative coping strategies like pulling children out of school to work or selling critical household assets.

The drought follows a series of climate disasters, including Tropical Storm Ana in 2022 and Tropical Cyclone Freddy in 2023. These challenges are exacerbated by weak economic growth, high debt,  low primary school completion,  high prevalence of stunting  (impaired growth due to malnutrition) and  a high HIV/AIDS infection rate.

The World Food Programme (WFP) has been in Malawi since 1965. While WFP has preferred cash transfers over food distributions in recent years, the severity of current shortages both in Malawi and the region has meant a shift to imported food.

WFP aims to reach 2.1 million people with food distributions and cash transfers, treat nearly 90,000 children for malnutrition, and provide additional school meals to 700,000 children.

What the World Food Programme is doing in Malawi

Food assistance: WFP supports the Government in responding to emergencies by providing food and cash-based transfers including to refugees. WFP also provides cash-based transfers to 56,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Dzaleka refugee camp, in partnership with the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). WFP is distributing food under the El Niño emergency response. This effort, which complements the Government’s national response plan, is supported by donor commitments. Food distributions include maize, malnutrition treatment (fortified cereal) and school meals, for around 2.1 million people.
School meals and nutrition: WFP supports education through the provision of daily meals to 825,000 schoolchildren in 778 primary schools and 140 pre-primary schools. In 2022, WFP uses a home-grown school feeding approach that uses fresh foods bought from local smallholder farmers. This provides a consistent market for the farmers, and fresh, locally produced nutritious food for the children. As part of the El Niño response, WFP extended school-meal programmes as emergency support to 700,000 children and assisted the treatment of moderate acute malnutrition for 88,000 children. WFP shares nutrition messaging to promote healthy habits in schools and communities. WFP also focuses on institutional capacity strengthening, working, with the Government and other sectors to increase technical capacity of operations and systems to increase ownership and sustainability.
Livelihoods: WFP’s “changing lives” agenda in Malawi focuses on asset creation, climate-smart agriculture, increased access to finance (savings and loans), crop insurance, management of post-harvest losses, and linking smallholder farmers to markets. WFP is working with farmers to provide water for year-round crop production, and equipping communities with solar-powered irrigation and pumps. These are especially important due to El Niño-induced dry spells, helping communities grow crops during the dry season to mitigate crop losses.
Capacity strengthening: WFP provides technical assistance to emergency preparedness and response institutions in Malawi, aimed at enhancing the humanitarian response amid increasing climate-induced emergencies. This covers areas including coordination, weather forecasting, and monitoring of anticipatory action. WFP is supporting the Ministry of Health to improve warehouse good practices and data quality management, by providing supervision for health facilities.
Supply chain services: WFP provides services to the national disaster management agency and humanitarian and development partners, through the Logistics Cluster, to enhance coordination and supply chain management. WFP also provides access to on-demand supply chain services to Government, humanitarian and development actors, to enhance their capacity to ensure more effective and efficient interventions.