There is a deficit of $303.8 million (about K214.7 billion) in the Food Insecurity Response Plan (Firp) which the government launched on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
With a total budget of $395.1 million (about K279.3 billion), $91.32 (about K64.5 billion) has been confirmed as being available.<\/p>\n
President Peter Mutharika launched the plan, which is targeting 6.5 million people in 24 districts.<\/p>\n
The June 2016 Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) report says these people are food insecure and in urgent need of food assistance.<\/p>\n
The plan tackles such areas as food security, agriculture, water, sanitation and hygiene (Wash), nutrition, protection, education and health.<\/p>\n
A closer look at the summary of the plan shows that education, health, protection and Wash components are yet to start having their pledges honoured. Wash has a budget of $22.1 million (about K15.7 billion), education $4.2 million (about K2.97 billion), heath $1.05 million while protection has a budget of $306, 926.<\/p>\n
However the plan has shown that food security component, which is targeting all the 6.5 million people affected has a budget of $307.5 million (K217.4 billion). Only $64.2 million has been confirmed. This amount however includes $55 million carried over from last year\u2019s response. About $10 million is in form of donation of rice from the Government of China.<\/p>\n
Agriculture, which is targeting 1.85 million people, has a budget of $30.8 million. Only about $1.7 million has been confirmed. In the amount, $610,000 is from One UN Fund, $800,000 from USAID and $200,000 from other sources.<\/p>\n
The nutrition component has a budget of $29.1 million. It is targeting 312,210. An amount of $25.5 million has already been confirmed.<\/p>\n
According to the plan, food assistance will be provided to hunger-affected areas until March next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis represents 39 per cent and the needs vary from across the affected districts over the whole lean season, which spans from July to March 2017. Some districts have populations that will require food assistance for a period of 3 months while others like Nsanje will require assistance of up to nine months,\u201d reads the report.<\/p>\n
Mutharika, who appealed for more support from countries, organisations and other well-wishers, said the plan will assist in ending perennial food shortages in the country.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe response plan is tailored to link and coordinate efforts to ensure that the cycle of food and nutrition insecurity is broken in the long run,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Acting UN resident Coordinator, Amakobe Sande, has said the plan needs good leadership in its implementation process.<\/p>\n
She has however also appealed for good planning and that focus should be on prevention.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis includes planning for next rainy season and La Nina which might bring flooding in the south of Malawi. Let us not forget the importance of supporting the farmers for the next agricultural season in a sustainable way.<\/p>\n
\u201cOtherwise, next year there is a great chance of similar scenario even in case of good rain because farmers will not afford quality seeds nor fertilizer. Where communities have access to irrigable land, the government, through its development programmes can prioritise reprogramming to support these communities,\u201d Sande said during the launch of the plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a deficit of $303.8 million (about K214.7 billion) in the Food Insecurity Response Plan (Firp) which the government launched on Wednesday. With a total budget of $395.1 million (about K279.3 billion), $91.32 (about K64.5 billion) has been confirmed as being available. President Peter Mutharika launched the plan, which is targeting 6.5 million people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28185,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28180\/revisions\/28185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}