UNHCR Malawi helps flood victims to rebuild shattered lives

A press release from the UNHCR: The floods, when they came, came without warning. They were Malawi's worst in 20 years, sweeping through 15 districts in January 2015 and forcing 174,000 people to flee their
homes. Sixty-two people were killed and thousands more risked disease. Now, thanks to nearly US $600,000 from a special UN emergency fund, UNHCR Malawi has given affected populations a chance to rebuild their lives.

The UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) has enabled UNHCR Malawi to provide core relief items to 8,120 households in the worst-hit districts of Machinga, Zomba, Mulanje and Phalombe. Between May 24 and June 4 this year, kitchen sets, blankets, sleeping mats and insecticide-treated mosquito nets were distributed to thankful locals.

Women were particularly excited by the kitchen sets, having had to try and find work to raise money to buy cooking pots, plates, cups, and other household items lost in the floods.

"I was going to sell sand, but now I do not have to," one woman told UNHCR. "It would take me a very long time to recover the lost items, but this has now changed, thanks to UNHCR."

Men, too, were grateful for UNHCR's help. "The blankets and mats are just what we needed to pull through this bad weather," said one male recipient. "And the mosquito nets will safe guard against malaria."

Locator map of Malawi by TUBS, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

UNDP pledges to assist Malawi recover from floods disaster

Vatican Radio: ...Malawi is regularly hit by floods and droughts. This requires emergency responses of varying size each year. This year, according to the UN News Service, flooding has caused displacement of over 170,000 people, while an estimated 116,000 households have lost their crops and livestock. In Nsanje district alone, 79 people are confirmed dead with another 153 people still missing.

...A United Nations (UN) wide effort has been launched to support those in need and mitigate the potential risks of disease and food shortages. In addition to the important work provided by the World Food Program (WFP), World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in airlifting supplies and providing clean water and sanitation, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other agencies are poised to help in early recovery efforts.

 Ensuring livelihood, economic and social recovery – reestablishing schools such as Jimmy Mbamere’s – is crucial.

 The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is already planning early recovery and has put in place an adviser who will engage with the government and other UN agencies to ensure a comprehensive early recovery strategy.... 

Dire conditions for Malawi's flood survivors

IRIN: For those who have lost everything in southern Malawi’s Chikwawa District, just getting the next meal is now the priority. “Life is unbearable here. We hardly get food, but what else can we do? We cannot go back to our homes. They are under water and probably [fallen] down by now,” said displaced Aman Maomao, who is among hundreds sheltering in the grounds of a local public building.

In total 1.15 million Malawians have been affected by the flooding of 15 of the country’s 28 districts, which followed heavy rains a month ago. In all, some 336,000 people have been displaced and 276 are missing or dead.

“We have been hit and we are in this situation. There is nothing we can do. We are waiting for the necessities, as we cannot go back home,” said a man who identified himself as Aswell Guta.

When it rains at night, the displaced do their best to find some space in the few tents but they are usually used for medical consultations and are too small to be decent dormitories. They are segregated by sex, but not by age: children share the sleeping quarters with adults. In other displacement sites, men and women share tents.

Only one of the 20 displacement sites in Chikwawa district has enough tents to meet the needs of those living there. In the others many sleep in the open, with few cooking utensils, mosquito nets and buckets....

After intense flooding, Malawi desperately needs scale-up in international aid – UN experts

UN News Centre: The international community must rapidly respond to the devastating flooding affecting Malawi with critical humanitarian aid and appropriate funding, a group of United Nations human rights experts affirmed today, warning that the African country was facing “its worst flooding in living memory.”

In a press release, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Chaloka Beyani, the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Hilal Elver, and the Special Rapporteur on the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation, Léo Heller, encouraged the international community to do “everything possible to meet the current serious shortfall in funds and provision of essential aid,” especially as only a quarter of the urgently required $81 million of a Preliminary Response Plan had been received to date.

“The flooding has displaced large numbers of people and presents massive and complex challenges for Governments and their humanitarian allies in the short, medium and longer-term,” Mr. Beyani said.

“Evacuation of affected populations should be undertaken where necessary to save lives, and an effective humanitarian response is essential to address the needs of internally displaced people and others affected,” he continued. “Helping people to return and reconstruct devastated homes - when circumstances allow - will be just one challenge among many to rebuild lives and livelihoods and should be part of a broader recovery plan.”

Malawi is regularly hit by floods and droughts, requiring emergency responses of varying size each year. This year, flooding has caused displacement of over 170,000 people, while an estimated 116,000 households have lost their crops and livestock. In Nsanje district alone, 79 people are confirmed dead with another 153 people still missing...

Basket Bridge, Rumphi, northern Malawi, crossing South Rukuru river, shot by Michaelphoya, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International 4.0 license

More Malawi floods in the next two weeks

Yamikani Yapuwa and Memory Kutengule in AllAfrica.com via Malawi News Agency:  The Department of Climate Change and Meteorological Services has warned of high rainfall amounts which will eventually trigger flash floods and flooding in potential flood prone districts in the next two weeks. Director of Climate Change and Meteorological Services Jolam Nkhokwe said the trend is as a result of the activeness of Congo air mass coupled with a low pressure area in the Mozambique Channel.

He said: "Our two main rain bearing systems which are the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) and Congo air mass coupled with a low pressure area located in the Mozambique Channel remain active. "This will consequently cause wide spread rainfall associated with high rainfall amounts. The high rainfall amounts cumulatively are expected to trigger flash floods and flooding in potential flood prone districts such as, Nsanje, Chikhwawa, Phalombe, Mangochi, Salima, Nkhata bay and Karonga," warned Nkhokwe.

Nkhokwe further warned that during this period severe thunderstorms are expected and would be accompanied by strong winds and lighting because of the accumulation of heat energy in the atmosphere. "The general public is therefore being advised to be indoors during periods of severe thunderstorms to avoid lighting strikes and should take caution when crossing swelling rivers," cautioned Nkhokwe.

And Assistant District Disaster and Risk Management Officer for Blantyre, Alibewake Maulawo has disclosed to Malawi News Agency that at least 561 households in Blantyre District have been affected by the stormy rains since October last year....

Locator map of Malawi by TUBS, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Heavy rains render 500 families homeless in Malawi

AllAfrica.com via the Malawi News Agency: About 489 families in Nkhata Bay District have been rendered homeless following damage of their houses due to heavy rains which have been falling for the past four days.

The district's Assistant District Disaster Risk Management Officer (ADDRIMO), Oswel Mkandawire, said four traditional authorities have been badly affected, especially those along Limphasa and Lweya rivers which were flooded due to prolonged rains.

"In TA Timbiri, we have recorded 117 homeless families while in TA Fukamalaza 30 families have been affected. In Senior Chief Mkumbira 208 houses have been damaged," Mkandawire explained, adding that 134 families in TA Mankhambira are also homeless following damage of their houses. Meanwhile, 47 families are camping at Chikale Primary School after their houses completely got damaged.

Statistics relating to crop damage were not available as Mkandawire's office and that of Agriculture had not done assessment due to high water levels in the affected areas. "We are yet to assess crops that have been damaged because we are waiting for the water level to be low so that the assessment can be carried out smoothly," Mkandawire said.

He has since appealed to individuals, companies and other well wishers to come in and assist the victims. On her part, Village Headwoman Timbiri, whose area has been seriously affected, said all the crops they were expecting to harvest in few weeks to come, have been damaged and washed away by the heavy rains....

Weather info project aims to help African farmers adapt

Kizito Makoye at the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Farmers facing long periods of dry weather and floods have expressed hope that a new climate change adaptation initiative being rolled out in Tanzania and Malawi will spell an end to dismal crop yields.

The Climate Services Adaptation Programme launched in November 2013 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) presents a window of opportunity for African farmers to use scientific knowledge to battle weather challenges.

With $10 million in funding pledged by Norway, the pilot project is expected to equip thousands of farmers in Malawi and Tanzania with skills to combat extreme weather, especially drought and floods. Farmers will be taught ways to boost the resilience of their crops and protect their farms, such as using drought-tolerant crop varieties, changing planting dates to cope with shifting rainfall patterns and planting barrier crops to reduce pest infestations.

Other techniques include using drains to avoid water runoff in their fields, and other harvesting and irrigation systems to cope with fluctuations in the availability of water. Farmers will also learn how to plant tree nurseries to increase carbon sequestration.

“Every one of us has in one way or another been affected by bad weather. When the experts are empowered, they should help us with skills to prevent unnecessary losses,” said Hamisi Ali, a farmer from Matombo village in Tanzania’s Morogoro region.

“This is a pilot project, but the ultimate goal is to see (that) every single farmer across the country is able to use these skills to deal with the effects of climate change,” said Richard Muyungi, director of climate change in the office of Tanzania’s vice president....

A farm in Mwanza, Tanzania, shot by Hansueli Krapf, Wikimedia Commons,  under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Politicians’ delay means climate catastrophe for Malawi's poor

Mabvuto Banda in IPS: Delays in finalising Malawi’s climate change policy, which has been in the making for the last three years, are affecting millions of families living in disaster-prone areas across this southern African nation, says the country’s minister of environment and climate change management Halima Daudi.

Daudi, who led the Malawian delegation to COP19 in Warsaw last month, tells IPS that the delay in drafting and making the policy operational comes at a cost to many of Malawi’s vulnerable. “For example there is the GCF [Green Climate Finance] which needs us to come up with a governing instrument by establishing an authority designated to be the focal point to handle the funds and we cannot access that without a national policy on climate change,” she says.

For the last three years, the Malawian government, with the help of United Nations agencies, has been working on the National Climate Change Policy, a National Climate Change Investment Plan and a National Adaptation Plan to address medium- to long-term adaptation needs for Malawi.

William Chadza, executive director for the Centre for Environmental Policy and Advocacy, a local civil society grouping, explains that “as a country we cannot access financing for adaptation without a well-articulated national climate policy and a national adaptation plan which needs to establish a body to specifically handle climate funds.”

Daudi agrees. “It’s very difficult for us to access such funds for adaptation and mitigation, which in the end increases the vulnerability of so many families to [the impact of] climate change,” she says....

Severe water shortages in Malawi

IRIN: Parts of Malawi, including large parts of the northern region, have not received rain since February 2013 and are now experiencing severe water shortages. Women in the affected areas are leaving their homes in the early hours of the morning and walking up to 40 minutes to fetch water from the closest source.

“One will have to be up and on their way to the nearest borehole by midnight if she is to be in a position to get water, because by that time several other people will already have lined up for the same,” said Lucky Chadewa, who lives in Chikwawa in northern Malawi’s Rumphi district.

The water table has dropped as the rainless days have continued and boreholes yield less water or even dry up. The women wait for them to refill rather than return home empty-handed. “It is totally just by luck that one gets… [any] these days because after filling just a few buckets, the borehole stops producing water,” Chadewa told IRIN.

Women often leave their buckets in the queue at the borehole and rush back home so they can get their children ready for school. But when they return they find that their buckets have been pushed to the back of the queue and they may spend the rest of the day waiting to fill them....

Hunger looms over Malawi

Thomson Reuters Foundation via Plan UK: Nearly 1.5 million villagers are short of food in rural Malawi after severe weather disrupted harvests, reports Plan International. Late and erratic rains, droughts and floods have all contributed, with the north of the East African country worst affected.

Many families are now down to one or two basic meals a day, instead of three, in a bid to ration what they have. “Most households have given up breakfast as one way of saving the little food they have stocked,” says Plan’s country director in Malawi, Lilly Omondi.

“As such, their dietary intake has decreased below normal and this may result in increased cases of malnutrition in children under the age of five.” Families could be short of food for up to five months while in one of the worst hit areas, villagers walked 12 miles to get food aid.

The government will provide 25,000 tonnes of maize for distribution after 30,000 tonnes of grain rotted in reserves earlier this year. Aid workers for Plan have begun distributing maize, pulses and corn-soya blend to families in Mzimba and Kasungu.

High maize prices and families’ lack of assets after repeated shortages are worsening the situation....

A UN food program feeding children in Malawi, shot by khym54, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Malawians brace for another year of hunger

IRIN: The phrase on the lips of many Malawians these days, particularly in the north of the country is: “There will be hunger this year.”

In Karonga District, prolonged hot, dry spells caused maize crops in the southern part of the district to wilt. The dry spell was followed by heavy rains, which not only knocked down the wilting maize but also brought down several houses, affecting scores of people. In the northern part of the district, flooding filled rice paddies with sand, virtually burying the crop.

Rumphi and Mzimba districts - the hub of maize production in Malawi’s northern region - were also hit by dry spells starting from February.

As a result of the weather conditions, most farmers in the region harvested little maize. In fact, an annual food security forecast by the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) - composed of the government, UN agencies and NGOs - predicted that 21 of the country’s 28 districts will face varying degrees of food insecurity until the next harvest in March 2014, with the northern region most severely affected.

Across the region, residents have started buying and storing bags of maize to prepare for the steep price increases that normally accompany the peak of the lean season....

Malawi faces food shortage

Seed Daily via AFP: Nearly 10 percent of Malawi's 13 million people face hunger due of low yields of the main staple maize, prolonged dry spells and flooding, a report released Saturday said.

"The total number of people who will not be able to meet their annual food requirement during the 2013/14 consumption period is 1,461,940, representing 9.5 percent of national total population," the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee said.

The grouping of several government departments, the United Nations, embassies and humanitarian agencies said those affected will need assistance for a period of between two to five months....

Malawians rethink maize planting as climate dries

Karen Sanje in AlertNet: Less than three years after Ezelina Nyirongo reluctantly abandoned cultivation of her favourite local maize varieties, the 48-year-old from Rumphi in northern Malawi is thinking of going back to them. Back in 2010, Nyirongo was advised by agricultural extension officers working in her area, near the city of Mzuzu, to switch from late-maturing local maize to new hybrid varieties.

“The hybrid maize varieties they recommended we start growing have been maturing a little earlier than the local varieties, at least before the rains finished,” said Nyirongo. “And the harvest has also been a little better than when I was growing the local maize varieties.”

But now, officials from the ministry of agriculture and food security and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are encouraging farmers to plant indigenous maize again, alongside the hybrid varieties.

“This is for adaptation to the effects of climate change, both by way of growing the local varieties themselves, which are more resilient to harsh climatic conditions, and production of early-maturing hybrid varieties,” Malawi’s deputy minister of agriculture and food security, Ulemu Chilapondwa, told AlertNet...

Fertilizers could help tackle nutritional deficiency in African country

Seed Daily via SPX: Enriching crops by adding a naturally-occurring soil mineral to fertilisers could potentially help to reduce disease and premature death in the African country of Malawi, researchers have said.

An international study led by academics at The University of Nottingham has shown that dietary deficiency of the mineral selenium - which plays a vital role in keeping the immune system healthy and fighting illness - is likely to be endemic among the Malawi population.

They found that most Malawi soils cannot supply enough selenium for adequate human nutrition and, in a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, they call for further investigation into the benefits and costs of using selenium-enriched fertilisers and other strategies to boost levels within the country's food.

Leading the study was Dr Martin Broadley, of the University's School of Biosciences, he said: "Selenium is a naturally occurring mineral of fundamental importance to human health, with critical roles in immunity. People with low dietary selenium intakes are at increased risk of suffering from a variety of diseases…

Electron shell diagram for selenium by Pumbaa, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales license

Malawi's bountiful harvests and healthier children

Michigan State University News: Through research led by Michigan State University, crop yields have increased dramatically. The children of Ekwendi, Malawi, also have gained weight and are taller. These improvements bring smiles to Sieglinde Snapp, MSU ecologist, and other researchers who have worked in Malawi for many years.

Snapp, a crop and soil scientist at MSU’s Kellogg Biological Station, shared the secrets of the initiative’s success at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Feb. 14-18 in Boston.

One of the focal points of her research has been improvements in crop diversity and soil health, which have increased yields. Snapp has worked with local scientists, hospital staff and extension workers to rotate cereal grains with bushy legumes, which sparks soil improvement without relying solely on fertilizers.

Crop model simulations, long-term field trials and on-farm experimentation highlight which combinations of legumes, cereals and soil management are best at using resources efficiently. Rotating corn with pigeonpea mixtures (a shrubby legume) keeps the soil from being stripped of nutrients, such as nitrogen, while increasing nutrient-rich grain productivity.

“Participatory action research combined with access to new seeds of bushy food legumes has helped spread a mantle of green across the countryside and help achieve greater food security,” Snapp said. “There have been notable gains in dietary diversity and increased child health in hundreds of farm communities of Northern Malawi – a truly sustainable project.”

Malawi farmers, many of whom are women, also play a critical role in the program’s success. They have embraced the initiative and constantly look to improve their efforts through testing of crop rotations, nutrient-enriched legumes, drought-tolerant crops and staple cereals. Working together, the entire team will help cope with a changing world, Snapp added....

Sorghum in Malawi, shot by Swathi Sridharan, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license

Malawi’s heroines of the floods

Mabvuto Banda in IPS: For many women in Malawi’s disaster-prone southern district of Nsanje, resilience is essential to survive the cyclical flooding. Twenty-four-year-old Chrissie Davie, a mother of four, saved two of her three children from drowning when water filled her house as she slept early this year.

About 6,157 families lost their property, over a thousand hectares of crop fields were ruined and 343 houses were destroyed in a matter of minutes when tropical cyclone Funso from the Mozambican channel landed on southern Malawi in January. The region is hit annually by high rainfall around this time of year.

“Water came so quickly that by the time I woke up, it was too late for Chimwemwe, my youngest son,” she told IPS. Chimwemwe was already dead when she reached to pull him out of the floodwaters. He was only 18 months old. Davie used an empty drum to float her two remaining children, four-year-old Saulos and two-year-old Moses, to safety.

Chrissie Davie now lives in a makeshift shelter with her children after floods destroyed her house in January. She reached Chikoje, one of the schools in Traditional Authority Mbenje, southern Malawi. But within hours, she, together with the others who sought safety there, abandoned the school when the floodwaters rose. They walked for hours to reach a Malawi Defence Forces emergency camp called Nyatwa.

...According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), this landlocked, resource-poor southern African nation is vulnerable to a wide range of shocks and disasters, including yearly flooding and drought once every three to five years...

Shrinking lake threatens livelihoods in Malawi

IRIN: Mposa Village, in south-eastern Malawi’s Machinga District, used to sit on the shores of Lake Chilwa. Now its residents, who have long relied on the lake to earn a living, have to walk two hours to reach its edge.

Lake Chilwa, Malawi’s second largest lake, used to measure 60km by 40km, but it is shrinking after two years of below-average rainfall. Its shores have moved about 15km inward, and experts warn that if the coming rainy season does not bring adequate rainfall, the lake could dry up completely.

The falling water levels are already having a major economic impact on the 1.5 million people in three districts - Machinga, Zomba and Phalombe - who rely on the lake for fishing and farming. In a normal year, Lake Chilwa supplies up to 20,000 tons of fish, accounting for about 20 percent of all fish catches in Malawi. As parts of the lake have dried up, catches have fallen, although it is not yet clear by how much.

...Reduced sources of potable water, combined with poor sanitation in crowded areas that still have adequate water levels, likely contributed to a recent cholera outbreak.

...To sustain water levels, the lake needs 1,000mm of rain every year, but only received about 740mm during each of the last two rainy seasons, said Sosten Chiotha, a professor at the University of Malawi and an expert with the Lake Chilwa Basin Climate Change Adaptation Programme (LCBCCAP). Chiotha is also regional director of the Leadership for Environment and Development in Southern and Eastern Africa (LEAD), a global non-profit....

Lake Chilwa view from space

Study highlights lack of climate-linked aid to Malawi

Bernard Appiah in SciDev.net: Contrary to popular belief, relatively little donor funding is being channelled towards climate change adaptation activities in Africa, according to researchers who conducted a study released this month (9 August) that examines foreign aid to Malawi.

Aid funding specific to climate change activities represented less than two per cent of the total donor aid to Malawi, according to what the researchers say is the first study to analyse specifically all climate aid to any single country.

Providing such data to disentangle climate-specific aid and map its application with geospatial tools can help compare the effectiveness of climate aid projects, as well as boost donor coordination, say the researchers.

The study analysed all aid to Malawi from September 2011 to May 2012, and was published by the Climate Change and African Political Stability (CCAPS) programme at the Strauss Center, University of Texas at Austin, United States.

"Despite all the media attention on climate vulnerability in Malawi and other African countries, there doesn't seem to be much aid going into climate change adaptation in the region," lead researcher, Catherine Weaver, told SciDev.Net. 

Developing countries receive nearly US$150 billion in aid annually for socio-economic development and poverty alleviation, but need US$100 billion more a year to address the threats of global climate change, according to a 2010 World Bank report....

An irrigated field in Malawi, shot by Alexandria Riboul, USAID

Climate change squeezing Malawi’s maize production

Charles Mkula in New Times Africa: Despite Malawi registering surplus maize yields in recent years, food production in the southern African nation has been on the decline, a climate change study has indicated. Malawi has in the past six years basked in the glory of maize surpluses that came about partly because of the implementation of the world acclaimed Farm Input Subsidy Programme and favourable rains falling on the heels of serious droughts between 1978 and 2005 growing seasons that resulted in crop failures and low yields.

According to an IMF report, the droughts were evidence of famine that was triggered mainly by failure of the rain-bearing systems during the critical planting season. Rainfall distribution in Malawi has become more unpredictable to the extent that it has reduced crop production, Malawi’s Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Water Development hydrologist Henrie Manford Njoloma has disclosed in his research study of over 60 years of rainfall data in the sub Saharan country. “Rainfall distribution is no longer uniform and predictable as it used to be in the past,” he says noting that maize, the country’s staple diet has been drastically affected by the erratic rainfall patterns.

Njoloma notes that the reliance on rain to produce maize for the national consumption has become Malawi’s great challenge with the main producers of the staple diet being smallholder farmers whose land holding size averages 0.3 ha. Malawi’s food production is mainly from rain-fed agriculture with maize produced by about 97% of all farming house-holds. “When rains fail there is less maize production therefore creating economic problems in the national economy despite maize not being categorized as an economic crop,” he points out....

Photograph by 3268zauber, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

Malawi traditional leaders step up to help fight forest fires

Karen Sanje in AlertNet: Malawi’s traditional leaders have been enlisted to help prevent forest fires that are threatening livelihoods, producing climate-changing emissions and damaging the environment in this southeast African nation.

“As community leaders we should take a leading role in preventing and putting out fires,” said Paramount Chief M’mbelwa of Mzimba during a meeting on fire prevention in the government-owned Viphya plantation.

Those efforts may include things like improving labour relations to curb arson fires by disgruntled plantation employees, and limiting the sale of beer within plantations, as drinking is linked to fires from dropped cigarettes, and limiting the use of muzzleloader guns, also believed to be setting off fires.

In 2010, fires damaged nearly 9,000 hectares (22,000 acres) of trees in the plantation, whose 54,000 hectares (132,000 acres) make it one of Africa’s largest manmade forests.

In recent years, warmer temperatures in the region, likely related to climate change, have worsened the risk of fires and the extent of outbreaks. Mzuzu, the city closest to the Viphya plantation, used to be known for its year-round cool temperatures, but the mercury there now soars as high as 32 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) in the summer....

The road to Mzuzu in Malawi. This is the Chikangawa man-made forest. Shot by Malawiana, Wikimedia Commons, public domain