WFP extends feeding programme

The World Food Programme (WFP) has extended its emergency feeding programme for families still suffering from floods earlier this year for a further two months "in response to the alarming food situation" in the country.

WFP adviser in Malawi, Ayoub Algaloudi, told IRIN in a written response to questions that the programme which was supposed to end in October would now wrap up at the end of December.

"An extension-in-time and a budget revision have been developed for two months effective 1 November 2001. The operation plans to distribute 11,330 mt to 366,000 beneficiaries, representing 73,200 families," he said. "The third distribution of EMOP [Emergency Operations Programme] is being planned and will take place at the end of this month (October). A total of 1,821.05 mt will be distributed to 265,500 beneficiaries."

The third distribution was to be conducted some time ago, but according to a humanitarian source, the deliveries were delayed because donors had not responded to the appeal for food in time.

Algaloudi told IRIN the distributions were just to "bridge the gap" until a WFP/FEWS-NET/EU mission, conducting a food supply assessment due to begin on Tuesday 30 October, made clear recommendations. He also said WFP would strengthen its supplementary feeding programmes in Malawi over the next five years to deal with hunger in the impoverished southern African nation.

The joint food assessment comes in the wake of a World Vision report that about 75 percent of people surveyed at the Nayuchi Area Development Programme in Machinga, southern Malawi, at the beginning of October had no food reserves. Only 20.8 percent had food until December.

The World Vision survey results, officially released on Monday, also showed that up to a quarter of all Malawian children under the age of five would be severely malnourished because of the food crisis.

Two years of floods have led to widespread hunger among Malawi's mainly rural population, leading to a decrease in harvests of up to 25 percent. While the government has bought 150,000 mt of maize from South Africa, it is headed for the commercial market, priced out of range for the poorest of the poor. However, the Malawian government told IRIN last week that it was planning to distribute about 60,000 mt of free food to the most vulnerable.

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