In the Foreign Policy Commission of December 9th, Minister-president Bourgeois responded to the question of MP Johan Verstreken on the threat of food shortage in Malawi and Mozambique.
The climate phenomenon El Niño affects Southern Africa severely. Malawi and Mozambique experienced heavy flooding in the beginning of 2015. Now the drought creates a new climate challenge for agriculture. An estimated 2.8 million Malawians will need food aid in the coming 3 to 8 months.
Minister-president Bourgeois started his answer with the structural contributions of the government.
A clear focus within the bilateral cooperation with Malawi is on food security and agriculture. Every year five million euros are spent on strengthening agriculture and increasing food security.
Because climate change affects mainly agrarian developing economies, the Government of Flanders decided to focus the contribution for climate financing fully on enhancing climate resilience of food production. To this end Flanders cooperates with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). For the period 2016 -2019, 3.5 million euro goes to a FAO project in Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia. This project has three objectives: gathering and monitoring climate risks data, reducing farmers' vulnerability to climate change and improving the resilience of the agricultural system.
In addition to these structural contributions the minister-president talked about two additional actions. Just a few day ago (4 December), the government decided to grant the World Food Programme 208.149 euro in emergency aid for the coordination and monitoring of the emergency response plan of Malawi. Also, the Malawi Emergency Humanitarian Response Fund will receive support in 2016. The amount has not yet been determined.
The Minister-president also mentioned the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). The Government co-finances this UN emergency relief financing fund on a structural basis. To meet the needs in southern Africa in response to El Niño, CERF reserved 76 million Dollars. Malawi is the 3rd largest recipient of this reservation. Flanders doubled its contribution to CERF in 2015 to 600.000 euros.
Minister-president Bourgeois stressed that Flanders Department of Foreign Affairs keeps track of the developments in Malawi and Southern Africa. The Flemish efforts must contribute to an increased resilience of the region against future food and climate crisis.
FAO (only dutch)
ICRAF – 1 million euros for ICRAF Agroforestry Food Security Programme in Malawi
CERF – Flanders doubles UN relief fund
WFP (only dutch)