Food Crisis and HIV/AIDS Pandemic in Malawi and Mozambique

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) warns that countries across southern Africa face a significant rise in food aid needs. This compounds critical food aid shortfalls in Malawi and Mozambique in particular, which are already suffering from food shortages. While a record maize harvest across Malawi should make maize more available and affordable throughout these countries, many of the poorest and most vulnerable people are still not able to access sufficient food for their families and need financial assistance.

HIV/AIDS rates across southern Africa are also extraordinarily high. An absence of food puts an even greater strain on HIV/AIDS victims and the family members struggling to care for them. Without assistance, vulnerable families in Malawi and Mozambique will either die from illness and starvation or be forced to adopt risky survival measures.

About Malawi

According to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), 34 percent of Malawi’s population of 13.2 million is malnourished. The hardest hit people include 1 million orphans, the aged, pregnant and nursing mothers, chronically ill people, and poor households that have suffered two successive years of crop failure. Approximately 14 percent of Malawi's population is believed to be HIV-positive. (Source: WFP) (Source: UNAIDS)

About Mozambique

The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has stated that Mozambique stands out as one of the worst-hit areas by the food crisis, and the situation has been exacerbated by the soaring poverty, hyperinflation, and the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS infection rate at 16 percent. (Source: WFP) (Source: UNAIDS)

African Relief Initiatives

Calvary Chapel Southbury and Adirondack Christian Fellowship are committed to improving the lives of the people in Malawi and Mozambique so they may have access to food, clean water, education on farming methods, education on HIV/AIDS prevention, and hope for a new way of life.

“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:2).