Malnutrition is common in Phalombe District, which is prone to drought and floods.
When a devastating avalanche, known as napolo, killed over 500 people in the southwestern district in 1991, many hoped it was a one-off catastrophe.
However, the district faces frequent disasters amid climate change. The most recent include Cyclone Freddy and the 2024 El Niño-induced drought, which fuelled hunger and malnutrition in Mwanga community, Traditional Authority (T/A) Jenala.
This shows how climate change slows progress to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) two to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition by 2030.
On a busy Tuesday morning at Mwanga Health Centre, dozens of mothers, clutching frail and famished children, wait patiently in line for life-saving therapeutic food.
Mary Sapeza, 21, walked from Kwatani Village to ensure her 10-month-old daughter does not miss out on the peanut butter supplement for treating malnutrition.
The baby on her back once weighed 6.2 kilogrammes, but started wasting away two months ago.
“I only harvested two bags of maize last growing season and that lasted until May,” she says with exhaustion. “Now I do piecework to get daily food.”
Her daughter was diagnosed with acute malnutrition in June and immediately started taking Likuni phala (fortified porridge).
“Now weight has improved to 7.5 kilogrammes,” says Sapeza, proudly clutching her baby’s health passport.
Beatrice Muchiri, 25, from Mwambeni Village, says her 19-month-old daughter is also recovering from wasting fuelled by drought.
The child has been taking chiponde, the ready-to-use therapeutic food since June.
“I have been coming here weekly, and she is getting better. Her appetite is back,” she says.
This mirrors how children are paying the highest price of repeated climate shocks that often batter the Southern Region.
“Our district experiences disasters which disrupt food production almost every year. This leaves families unable to feed themselves and malnutrition cases keep rising, especially among children and pregnant women,” explains Phalombe chief nutrition, HIV and Aids officer Lucy Ndiwo.
In 2023, three percent of children and five percent of pregnant and lactating women in Phalombe were found malnourished.
The World Food Programme (WFP) rolled out supplementary feeding programme to tackle malnutrition.
The intervention is credited with reducing child malnutrition to two percent and four percent among the target women group.
The programme is underway in seven worst-hit districts: Phalombe, Balaka, Chikwawa, Machinga, Mangochi, Nsanje and Zomba.
WFP provides likuni phala and chiponde to children and women found with severe malnutrition.
It also promotes backyard gardening, small-scale livestock rearing, food budgeting education and irrigation.
The programme is funded by the governments of Norway and Iceland, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, UN Central Emergency Response Fund, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and UKAid.
Malnutrition in Malawi is worsening.
According to the 2024 Malawi Demographic and Health Survey, 38.7 percent of children under five are stunted, 10 percent are underweight and two percent are wasted.
The situation is fuelled by low harvests and poor diets.
Health workers say poor nutrition in the critical first 1 000 days of life causing irreversible damage to a child’s health, physical growth, learning and productivity.
Besides, stunted learners are more likely to repeat classes, drop out early and miss future opportunities—a setback to Malawi’s future workforce and economic productivity.
Recently, United Nations resident coordinator Rebecca Adda-Dontoh said the UN is committed to support Malawi’s health and nutrition agenda.
“Malawi 2063 prioritises a healthy population as a cornerstone for national development. The SDGs echo the same. So, malnutrition is not just a health issue—it is a development bottleneck,” she stated.
Amid global aid cuts, the UN has doubled its support for initiatives that support human capital development, nutrition, agriculture, climate action and education.
“We are not going anywhere. The UN will continue standing with Malawi, its people and its systems, to build resilience and secure a better future,” Adda-Dontoh.
