Food Assistance- credit FFN |
USA' Second Lady,
Dr Jill Biden made the announcement on Tuesday in Blantyre when she
visited the Ubale Food for Peace project in the area of T/A Machinjiri
bringing the US's total contribution to the humanitarian response to
$74.7 million (MK52 billion) since October, 2015.
"The United States
remains committed to supporting the region including Malawi during
difficult months ahead and I am pleased to announce today $20 million in
assistance to Malawi through the United Nation World Food Programme.
"The announcement
today, brings the total United States assistance to $74.7 million since
the start of the food crisis in October," said Biden.
US Ambassador,
Virginia Palmer said they are working very closely with the Malawi
government and other development partners to ensure hunger does not roll
back the important development gains made in Malawi particularly for
women and girls.
President Professor Arthur Peter Mutharika declared the country a State of Disaster on 12 April, 2016.
Currently, over 6.5
million people are in need of humanitarian assistance according to the
2016 Malawi Vulnerability Assessment Committee (MVAC) report, an
increase from 2.8 million people during last year's agricultural season.
After Machinjiri,
the Second Lady also visited Nsamba Primary School in Zomba where she
attended a standard two class lesson in which the teacher used explicit
strategies to improve student's advanced reading skills as guided by
USAID's ASPIRE project currently running at the school.
Biden expressed satisfaction with how the teachers and students are faring in the project in advancing reading among pupils.
The ASPIRE project
aims at improving reading skills for girls in upper primary school while
the Ubale project aims at reducing food insecurity and building
resilience among vulnerable populations in three of the most food
insecure, chronically malnourished and disaster prone districts of the
southern Malawi namely Nsanje, Chikwawa and Blantyre.
Both Ubale, a $63
million and ASPIRE, $10.4 million projects are being supported by USAID
and run for five and four years respectively.
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