Africa-Press – Malawi. The Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) has acknowledged that ongoing rains are posing mobility challenges to those that are dispatching food to earmarked beneficiaries. The government has been implementing the Lean Season Food Insecurity Response Programme targeting 3.8 million.
While acknowledging that rains are a challenge, however, Dodma Director of Preparedness and Response Moses Chimphepo said, currently, over 60 percent of the households that were identified to be food insecure have been assisted.
“The good thing is that most of the areas which have poor road network are being targeted with money, instead of relief maize, which will make it easy for our officers to get to the areas. As for [areas that are difficult-to-reach in the rainy season, such as], Makanjira, we are exploring other means such as using boats to transport maize,” said Chimphepo when he monitored distribution of relief maize in Mangochi District Wednesday.
One of the beneficiaries of the programme, Loveness Akim, thanked the government for the assistance. “I have been failing to buy maize from vendors because I do not have money.
“We failed to harvest enough food last year because we did not have money to buy fertiliser. We hope that, this year, we will be able to harvest enough because we managed to use manure and the maize is looking good in the field,” she said.
In Mangochi, Dodma is targeting 58,000 households. Meanwhile, Mangochi District Commissioner Smart Gwedemula has expressed satisfaction with progress of relief food distribution work.
“As I am speaking, 38 percent of the targeted population has received relief items,” Gwedemula said.
The lean season programme was launched after the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee indicated, in a report released in 2022, that food insecurity would affect 27 districts of the country, in part due to tropical storms Ana and Gombe, which his some parts of the country between January and March last year.
Dodma indicates that total resource requirements for implementation of the programme are pegged at K74.17 billion, of which K46.91 billion has been mobilised through cash transfers by partners and the African Risk Capacity Programme insurance payout.
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