Lilongwe — The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has welcomed a contribution of US$1.5 million from USAID on behalf of the American people to provide life-saving food assistance to over 142,000 people and provision of air services in southern Malawi. WFP will use the contribution from the U.S. Agency for International Development to purchase corn-soya blend - a partially precooked fortified food consumed as porridge, vegetable oil and pulses. As road access continues to be a major challenge and with some populations still isolated due to high levels of flood waters, the funding will also be used to provide air services on behalf of the humanitarian community.
"The impact of the climate crisis is a daily struggle for communities in Malawi," said Paul Turnbull, WFP's Country Director in Malawi. "Cyclone Freddy has robbed most farmers of their food just as they were about to harvest the only crop of the year. We are grateful to the United States Government for supporting our efforts to provide food support to affected people who have lost everything to the cyclone."
The field assessment report released by the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) indicates that 2.3 million people have been affected by Tropical Cyclone Freddy in Malawi. Tropical Cyclone Freddy hit the southern part of Malawi, washing away crops, livelihoods and valuable assets such as livestock, and exacerbating food insecurity in the region. Some 320,000 hectares of land has been flooded, including 117,000 hectares of crops.
"We are committed to helping Malawi recover from this disaster as quickly as possible," said USAID acting Mission Director, Anna Toness. As part of our response, we are pleased to partner with WFP and the Government of Malawi to provide food assistance to people affected by the cyclone, and will continue to work with our partners to support both urgent relief and longer-term recovery efforts."
WFP is supporting ongoing national efforts in response to the emergency by distributing food and transporting relief items on behalf of the humanitarian community to flood-affected populations. As of 24 April, over 100,000 people have already received food assistance and 3,000 mt of humanitarian relief has been transported on behalf of the humanitarian community to flood-affected areas over land, water, and air.
The U.S. is the largest donor to WFP. In Malawi, USAID's Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance has already contributed US$12 million to WFP in 2023 to support refugees with cash transfers and building smallholder farmers' resilience and livelihoods.
