Malawi has received a $240 million (about K408 billion) grant from the World Bank to strengthen resilience to water-related climate impacts.

A statement issued yesterday by the World Bank says the grant, through the International Development Association (IDA),  will prioritise management of the Shire River Basin, which is widely considered as important for Malawi and Mozambique.

Part of the devastation after Cyclone Freddy

The grant will further support the Regional Climate Resilience Programme for Eastern and Southern Africa, a 10-year programme that seeks to protect people from exposure to water-related climate shocks by developing protective and resilient infrastructure, improved disaster risk management, and social protection systems

Reads the statement in part: “It [the grant] will also enhance coordination between Comoros, Madagascar, Malawi, and Mozambique in improving early warning systems and sharing information, as these countries are often affected by the same tropical cyclones.”

World Bank country director Hugh Riddell has been quoted in the statement as saying the grant will help Malawi, which has experienced 19 major floods and eight catastrophic droughts in the last five decades to move from a disaster response approach to preparedness.

This is the fourth financial package the Bretton-Woods institution has provided to the Malawi Government since June, following the $256 million package to improve resilience of food systems through the Food Systems Resilience Programme for Eastern and Southern Africa.

It also follows an $80 million direct budget support the bank announced earlier this month, and another grant worth $60 million to support the De-Risking Importation of Strategic Commodities project announced on November 20.

More than 1 000 people died and 600 000 others were displaced after Cyclone Freddy made a landfall earlier this year and triggered extensive floods in some parts of the southern Malawi.

The cyclone and the floods that followed also destroyed farmlands, a development that placed the affected farmers on the brink of food insecurity.

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