MALAWI: Action needed now to avert starvation
Feeding programmes to assist the poor should begin soon to prevent starvation, and possible death, by the end of the year, World Vision relief manager for Malawi, Elton Ntwana, warned on Wednesday.
U N I T E D N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN)
MALAWI: Action needed now to avert starvation
JOHANNESBURG, 24 October (IRIN) - Feeding programmes to assist the poor
should begin soon to prevent starvation, and possible death, by the end of
the year, World Vision relief manager for Malawi, Elton Ntwana, warned on
Wednesday.
His warning followed the release of a World Vision nutrition survey
conducted in part of the Machinga District from 2-8 October. The survey,
using a height-for-age formula, found a global acute malnutrition rate of
31.8 percent among children between six months and five years old.
Using the same formula, a severe acute malnutrition rate of 8.8 percent
was recorded. According to the survey, the malnutrition rates in the area
could reflect nutrition levels elsewhere in the country too.
"If people will only act when the malnutrition rate is very high, children
will die. If any assistance is needed, programmes should start now so that
by December people can get food," Ntwana told IRIN. According to the
survey, about 75 percent of respondents at the Nayuchi Area Development
Programme in Machinga, where the survey was conducted, had no food
reserves. Only 20.8 percent had food until December.
Flooding and drought earlier this year led to Malawi, a maize-deficit
country, experiencing severe shortages of the staple food. The government
said in September that it would need to import at least 180,000 mt of
maize to meet the shortfall and said early in October that it planned to
distribute about 60,000 mt of free maize to the most vulnerable. Already,
the government, in conjunction with aid partners, had begun distributing
free seeds and tools to boost next year's harvests.
Lucius Chikuni, Malawi's Commissioner for Disaster Preparedness, Relief
and Rehabilitation, told IRIN on Wednesday that the free maize would be
distributed once a vulnerability assessment being conducted by the UN
World Food Programme (WFP) and his department was completed.
"Ideally we should have started in November, but we are in the process of
doing the assessment. Definitely, by the beginning of December we should
be on the move," he said.
"The distribution has to run for six months ... We will be targeting
extension planning areas which are, according to FEWS (USAID's Food Early
Warning Systems) data have shown severe food shortage situations.
Currently there are 28 such extension planning areas," he added.
Chikuni said while it was still unclear where the 60,000 mt of maize would
come from, it was hoped that WFP and the government would pool their
resources and come up with the food. Other maize being imported is headed
for Malawi's commercial markets.
According to World Vision's survey, however, Malawi's children need more
than just food aid to grow and develop healthily. The survey said the
proportion of stunted children was "extremely high" at 31.8 percent,
reflecting ongoing problems. "Some of the causes may include inadequate
dietary intake and frequent infections such as malaria, diarrhoea, acute
respiratory infections and HIV/AIDS," the survey found.
To deal with this problem, it added, more long term development programmes
were needed to alleviate the living conditions of people in Nayuchi. It
also recommended the implementation of food-for-asset programmes for
families with no food until the next harvest, the strengthening of WFP
supplementary feeding programmes and the continued monitoring of the
precarious food security situation in the country.
[ENDS]
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[This item is delivered in the "africa-english" service of the UN's IRIN
humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views
of the United Nations. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post
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sites requires written IRIN permission.]
Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001