Why?
Malawi is currently in the midst of a significant drought that has caused widespread food insecurity and a safe water crisis – a result of climate change and the El Niño phenomenon. The prolonged dry spell and erratic rainfall negatively affected crop production in much of the country during the 2015/16 agriculture season. The priorities of the Project, complementary to the Malawi Government’s 2016-2017 Food Insecurity Response Plan (FIRP 2016-2017) are to augment existing cash-based interventions through the provision of cash transfers to enable the affected population to procure non-maize food items; rehabilitate communal sources of safe drinking water and conduct community based hygiene and sanitation campaigns; support farmers with small landholdings through training in sustainable agriculture and provision of initial farm inputs; and establishing information management systems to complement the effort of the government in surveillance and monitoring of natural hazards and health risks.