The humanitarian food assistance programme in the country has received a boost with an injection of $ 23 million (aboutK17 billion) by the United States (US) government.<\/p>\n
US Ambassador to Malawi Virginia Palmer made the announcement yesterday saying the additional donation is in response to the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee\u2019s (Mvac) report that 6.5 million people may face starvation if government does not make available enough food to its people.<\/p>\n
According to a press statement from the US Embassy, all the funds will be channeled through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).<\/p>\n
\u201cOf the $23 million, $18 million will be used to help fill deficits in pulses and super cereal needed for the 2016\/17 Food Insecurity Response Plan while $5 million will be used to purchase ready-to-use therapeutic food for HIV patients currently being treated with Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART),<\/p>\n
\u201cThe latter is particularly important to preserve gains made to date in HIV treatment, as malnourished patients tend to discontinue ART without access to food to ameliorate the treatment\u2019s side effects,\u201d part of the statement reads.<\/p>\n
The statement adds that in order to further preserve development gains in other sectors; the US has also re-programmed $12 million of previously planned investments in agricultural development and climate change adaptation programmes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese were longer-term investments that now have been re-directed to enhance the United States Government\u2019s responsiveness to the dire food security situation Malawi currently faces. These are primarily food-for-work activities, whereby beneficiaries will receive food for their contributions to resilience-building measures, such as afforestation, soil and water conservation, and small-scale irrigation,\u201d it reads.<\/p>\n
The additional assistance brings the US total contribution to the 2016\/17 Food Insecurity Response Plan to nearly $118 million, which is equivalent to about 30 percent of the Plan\u2019s $395 million estimated cost.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe United States Government continues to stand by Malawians in their time of need. But, together we recognize that policy and market predictability are critical if Malawi\u2019s farmers are to become entrepreneurs, if agribusinesses are to invest, and if Malawi is to transform its agriculture sector from a source of vulnerability into an engine for growth,\u201d Palmer said.<\/p>\n
The Ambassador has also pledged that her government will continue to work with the government of Malawi to break the cycle of food insecurity by providing assistance to help the country honour its New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition commitments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The humanitarian food assistance programme in the country has received a boost with an injection of $ 23 million (aboutK17 billion) by the United States (US) government. US Ambassador to Malawi Virginia Palmer made the announcement yesterday saying the additional donation is in response to the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee\u2019s (Mvac) report that 6.5 million […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":28118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34786","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\/34786","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=34786"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34787,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34786\/revisions\/34787"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}