Vulnerability to poverty in Malawi is highly associated with risk. Households face
multiple shocks, most of which threaten their livelihoods and impact negatively on their
welfare. The main objective of this investigation is to undertake an operational risk and
vulnerability assessment at household level. Given the lack of panel data in Malawi for
an ideal vulnerability assessment, the methodology of Christiaensen and Subbarao (2004)
will be adopted using a two-period cross sectional data coupled with rainfall data. The
first set of data comes from the 2004 Malawi Second Integrated Household Survey
(IHS2) while the second set is primary data collected through a follow-up of the same
households in 2006. This work is expected to come up with a better understanding of the
role of risk in influencing vulnerability to poverty among households in Malawi