In a bid to support those facing food insecurity, government says it will provide unconditional cash transfers worth K24 billion to support consumption needs of affected population under the Scalable Mechanism Safety Nets of the Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods Project (SSRLP -Tidzidalire).
A statement signed by Secretary to Treasury-Betchani Tchereni, indicates that 151,000 targeted households are receiving MK150,000 once-off cash payments (MK50,000 per month for a period of 3 months).
According to the statement, the support will target ultra -poor beneficiaries of Social Cash Transfer (SCT) and the Climate Smart- Public Works Program (CS-PWP) participants in ten districts.
Under the Scalable Safety Nets the program will support households under SCT and CS-PWP in six districts while in the additional districts of Mwanza, Balaka, Chikwawa and Nsanje the program will only target CST beneficiaries.
“With support from the Global Shield Financing Facility (GSFF), a Risk Transfer Insurance Policy amounting to US$10 million from African Risk Capacity was procured to support households in Blantyre, Thyolo, Chiradzulu, Ntcheu, Nkhota-kota and Karonga districts against drought for a period of 2 years.
Further, following the 2023/24 rain season, 4 out of the 6 districts, Ntcheu, Chiradzulu, Thyolo and Blantyre triggered requests for a pay out from the insurance as after meeting the qualifying thresholds,” reads part of the statement.
Meanwhile Tchereni said government has received US$6.6M from the insurance provider and an additional US$7M financial resources obtained from World Bank through the SSRLP under the Scalability Mechanism, has obtained financial resources from World Bank worth.
These will support the drought affected households in Balaka, Mwanza, Chikwawa and Nsanje districts following the declaration of state of disaster on 23rd March 2024 which has left about 5.7 million people food insecure, making it US$13.6M (about MK24.5 billion) in total.
“The Scalable Mechanism Safety Net enables the government to transfer funds to most vulnerable households in response to occurrences such as droughts to avoid the near poor slipping into the poverty cycle, and the poor and ultra-poor sliding further down the poverty line,” said Tchereni
However a food security expert Ronald Chilumpha has described it as a gamble to provide cash to households facing food insecurity saying some may not use the money to purchase food items.
Chilumpha has since proposed the need to implement sustainable solutions to addressing hunger situation in Malawi apart from cash handouts.
“It is a vicious circle where government spends billions of Kwachas to procure farm inputs under AIP and then spends more billions for food interventions towards the same households who end up facing hunger, thereby we end up wasting more resources.
Going forward, we need sustainable solutions such as ensuring that those who are targeted in the AIP have the capacity to produce and the rest should be considered in other income generating activities,” said Chilumpha.
The Scalable Mechanism Safety Nets is implemented under the SSRLP – Tidzidalire project, with financial support from the Multi Donor Trust Fund through the World Bank, USAID, Iceland, Ireland, UK-FCDO, the European Union, and Norway.
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