Despite facing many challenges, Malawi has made notable progress since 2000 in reducing its overall hunger and undernutrition levels as measured by the Global Hunger Index. This report gives a brief overview of Malawi’s economic situation, describes its hunger and undernutrition status, reviews the types of programs that have been shown to affect food and nutrition security, and highlights existing policies and policy recommendations aimed at achieving further progress.
Malawi is a small, land-locked country with an area of just under 120,000 square kilometers, or 46,000 square miles. Of this area, approximately 20 percent is covered by water, including the massive Lake Malawi, which lies along the country’s eastern border (World Atlas 2017). Malawi is divided into three regions: the least-populated Northern region; the Central region, home to the capital, Lilongwe; and the Southern region. The country is peaceful, and its government is relatively democratic and stable (World Bank 2018).
The most recent official poverty statistics for Malawi show that as of 2010, 71.4 of the population lived in poverty, only marginally lower than in 2004 when the poverty rate was 72.8 percent (World Bank 2019).1 World Bank projections suggest that this rate inched down slightly to 69.2 percent by 2017 (World Bank 2017). Malawi’s GDP per capita as of 2017 was just $338 in current US dollars. This is the second-lowest GDP per capita of all countries with available data; only Burundi is lower. Since 2010, GDP per capita has grown at an average annual rate of just 1.2 percent (World Bank 2019).