World Bank’s provision of additional resources amounting to K3.9 billion going towards disaster response from the Catastrophe Deferred Drawdown Option (CAT DDO) to the Unforeseen Expenditure budget line has been welcomed by players in the sector.
This was announced in the Minister of Finance Simplex Chithyola Banda’s presentation of the 2024-2025 mid -year budget statement on Wednesday last week.
Following the development, the Unforeseen Expenditure vote now stands at K4.4 billion.
In its reaction, Civil Society Network on Climate Change (CISONECC) hailed the move by the Bretton Woods institute describing it as a good thing that more players are coming in to support Malawi’s disaster response.
Its National Coordinator Julius Ng’oma was however not certain if the K3.9 billion allocation from the bank is enough considering the assessments that have been happening citing the Multi-Hazard Risk Assessment.
“Whether that money is going to be commensurate with whatever has been found as with the needs on the ground particularly to address the hazards, the risks that are already existing on the ground. But moving forward, I think it’s high time that we need to be budgeting or providing resources that are actually commensurate with the needs.
“We have PDNA’s that have been developed so far the last couple of years. We’ve had recovery plans that have been prepared also by the government which are actually falling short of so many things on so many areas that government is not able to manage”
Ng’oma further stressed on the need to lobby for more funds to help Malawi better prepare for any anticipated disaster.
“I feel like we need to go back and see whether we need to lobby for more money; government has to provide more money in addition to what the World Bank and others are providing so that we’re able to manage the situation beforehand”
Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA) Deputy Director responsible for Resilience and Recovery Hasting Mwanjoka acknowledged the increment towards the vote and called on need to create a way of effectively utilizing it.
He indicated that by its nature the vote is unforeseen, but what is needed is to have a budget line where there is a certain percentage going to the Department.
“This will only trigger when disaster has been declared; but we need a budget line where we can do everything in accordance with what happens in terms of disaster because when we talk of disaster it’s to do with issues of preparedness, response, resilience, recovery, all these things. Sometimes there can be disasters but you find that still people are being affected because we’ve been having a lot of disasters.
“We haven’t yet recovered fully so we have a lot of issues, a lot of interventions that we could do so that we should cope and we should put our country to be resilient. This increment of unforeseen circumstances, it’s a plus for DoDMA its going to support us, it’s going to help us and we thank World Bank for this”
According to Mwanjoka the funds from the World Bank can only be utilized following a declaration of a disaster.
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