The World Bank has approved two International Development Association (IDA) grants worth $210 million (about K218 billion) for Malawi to scale up and strengthen national safety nets.

In a statement yesterday, the bank said of the two grants, $100 million (about K104 billion) will finance emergency operations to protect the delivery of essential health services while $110 million (about 114 billion) will finance operations to scale up and strengthen national safety nets.

World Bank country manager Hugh Riddell is quoted in the statement as having said the two approvals enable IDA to front-load emergency financing for the country’s poorest and most vulnerable to ensure community resilience.

“While securing front-line health services and scaling safety nets is a direct response to the crisis, these projects are also designed to strengthen Malawian-led delivery systems, financial transparency and accountability and citizen engagement,” he said.

Beneficiaries of social cash transfer programme recieve their monthly allocation

With Malawi’s health sector workforce strained by Covd-19 and grappling with cholera outbreak, the bank said the project will specifically make available resources to cover the salaries of front-line health service providers at district level and operating expenditures such as fuel and energy that are necessary to keep health facilities running.

On the other hand, the second additional financing for the Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods Project will scale up and strengthen existing shock responsive safety nets in Malawi by financing a national three-month emergency cash transfer for 300 000 beneficiaries of the existing social cash transfer programme, a three-month horizontal expansion for 105 000 beneficiaries in urban hotspots and an expansion of 85 000 beneficiaries of the climate smart public works programme.

Reads the statement: “In addition, the operation will lay the foundation for increased donor harmonisation and government leadership of the social cash transfer programme through the milestone establishment.

“This will be done with the support of several of Malawi’s key international development partners of the Social Protection Multi Donor Trust Fund and expand coverage of Malawi’s social registry known as the Unified Beneficiary Registry and electronic payments of cash transfers and public works wages.”

Speaking in an interview yesterday, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs Sosten Gwengwe said the proposed Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods Project provides timely and wider coverage of shock-responsive safety nets to more affected people and for longer periods than under the regular programmes.

He said: “The deepening of the current macroeconomic crisis is leading to a deterioration of essential health services across a system that has not yet recovered from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and with an unprecedented 3.8 million people facing acute food insecurity.”

This development comes at a time allocations to on-budget social protection programmes have hit their lowest value as a share of the total budget since 2016/17, a situation which the United Nations warned makes the country’s social protection system vulnerable to potential donor funding withdrawals.

In its 2022/23 Social Protection Brief published recently, Unicef observed that social assistance programmes are dependent on fragmented external financing, with donors funding over 90 percent of the programme.

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