Over 6,000 people in Mulanje district have started receiving relief money from OXFAM to buy food as a response to the current hunger situation.

Country director of OXFAM John Makina confirmed the development.

“We have food in the country but the challenge is basically distribution of that. So if we do cash we make the markets to function, and automatically there will distribution of food from surplus areas to deficit areas, at the same time promoting production for the few farmers that were be able to produce surplus even in the food insecure areas,” said Makina.

The targeted families in Traditional Authority Mthilamanja in the district will be receiving K12, 500 (about US$33) each every month until March this year.

OXFAM is running the social cash transfer project with funding from the UK’s Department for International Development and the Irish government.

The project is also being implemented in Nsanje and Salima districts following a report from the Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee that estimated that at least two million people are facing hunger.