President Lazarus Chakwera has announced a state of disaster in 23 out of the country’s 28 districts due to prolonged droughts.
The president said the country requires more than $200 million in humanitarian aid to assist 2 million farming households affected by the El Nino-induced dry spells.
The announcement comes as the food distribution exercise in Neno district, southern Malawi kicked off by the World Food Programme alongside the Department of Disaster Management Affairs.
“I have a big farmland measuring more than one acre and a half. Together with the children I stay with, we farm on this land. With good rains, I harvest 20-50kg bags of maize. This year, to be honest, I have harvested nothing,” aid beneficiary Manes Kanjala said.
“We planted in November and the maize germinated because we had rains. In December, we had fewer rains. There was too much sun that scorched the whole field and crops.”
Neighbouring Zambia declared a national disaster in late February. Brighton Mphinga, the Disaster Risk Management Officer for Neno district hopes for more humanitarian assistance following the presidential declaration.
“The food you have seen we are distributing today is for the season that we are in, but there is an additional type of hunger that we are facing because of the dry spell we have experienced. For Neno, it has been hit hard. So, the president’s declaration means other people are going to come in now, lifting the hand of government where it wasn’t necessarily able to do it. People are going to come because of that declaration.”
The “Presidential Initiative to Stop Hunger” calls out to locals and the international community.
Around 600,000 metric tons of food aid are needed to mitigate the effect of weather extremes in recent years.