LIlongwe, Malawi, Jun 21 (IPS) – Two in five people in Malawi, a country of about 20 million people, now face the prospect of facing extreme hunger by the end of 2020, after El Nino-induced flooding and severe drought. . year.
Particularly at stake is the progress Malawi has made to improve maternal and infant nutrition, especially during the critical period of a child’s first 1,000 days.
But as I have faced similar challenges in the past, I have seen first-hand how international development assistance can uplift and build resilience in the most vulnerable communities.
For example, concessional finance from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) previously helped millions of Malawians get food, improve nutrition, and rebuild agricultural livelihoods in the aftermath of the shock. With its focus on addressing the most urgent long- and short-term challenges, IDA is one of the largest allies of climate-vulnerable, low-income countries.
But a situation we did not create is worsening the problem of hunger in Malawi and across the African continent, while impeding governments’ effective response.
For example, Malawi’s external debt service alone is estimated to amount to about $147 million this year, or just over 5% of total government spending. This is money that will better serve the country in the long term as an investment to build the resilience of smallholder farmers to protect their food and income security against increasing climate shocks.
In light of these complex challenges, we urgently need donor governments to double their contributions to IDA to ensure future replenishment. Otherwise, countries like Malawi will lack the resources to break the cycle of crisis.
Food systems in countries supported by IDA, where infrastructure and national resilience are already precarious, have been more severely affected by recent shocks than elsewhere.
We already know that one in three IDA countries are now poorer than before the COVID-19 pandemic and that the costs of recent climate disasters have doubled over the past decade and will continue to rise. These shocks are a huge setback to attempts to develop long-term resilience and promote agricultural development for food and nutrition security and rural livelihoods.
But just as these countries face greater challenges than ever before, the amount of funding available through IDA has plateaued and, in some cases, begun to decline.
Contributions to IDA have been stagnant for nearly a decade. This means that real financial support from the richest countries has declined as many countries have cut their aid budgets.
And the results of this reduction in funding are now being seen on the ground. For example, the number of food-insecure people in IDA countries has doubled over the past two replenishment cycles. This is a clear signal that donor countries must quickly pivot to save lives and economies around the world.
In the face of growing challenges, IDA can still be a driving force for positive change in the world’s most vulnerable situations, but only with strengthened support from major donor countries.
Momentum to ultimately address the hunger crisis, which cuts across borders, cultures and economies, is already growing with the formation of a global alliance against hunger and poverty ahead of this year’s G20 meeting in Brazil.
Donor governments must now build on the scale and urgency of the food security challenge before us by doubling funding for one of the most powerful solutions to hunger and poverty.
IDA is one of the most proven and effective aid providers the world has today and is essential to delivering the vision of a world without hunger and poverty.
More funding will allow IDA to support the long-term investments needed to strengthen national food systems while breaking the cycle of crisis that currently hampers the most vulnerable countries.
At the same time, adequately replenishing IDA is critical to achieving both the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the World Bank’s mission to end poverty. Both goals rely on sustainable agricultural development to enable healthy people and planet.
Therefore, as IDA holds its conference in Nepal, Malawi and other IDA countries need donor governments to step up financially and strategically to provide more funding for nutrition and food security.
The payoff for this investment is a world with less hunger, poverty and inequality, a cost ultimately borne by all of us.
soul. Simplex Chitiola Vanda Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs of Malawi
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