The socio-economic bearing of donor aid suspension in Malawi between 2007 and 2011 : a case study of the World Food Programme (WFP) school meals programme in Chiradzulu District.

Abstract

In Sub-Saharan Africa, one of the world’s poorest regions, governments heavily rely upon donor Aid in order to sustain their national budgets and address the exacerbation of poverty. Malawi, one of the poorest countries in the region is no exception and part of the cause of the poverty is donor aid suspension. The United Nation’s World Food Programme (WFP) in Malawi introduced the School Feeding programme in 1999. The intention was to reduce dropout rates, promote regular attendance, increase enrolment, and improve children’s ability to concentrate and learn, and improve government capacity to implement a school meals programme. During the period between 2007 and 2011, the WFP announced the temporary suspension of the programme for half a million children in 10 of the 13 Malawian Districts of which the Chirazdulu district was one. Since the suspension of the programme, no proper study has been conducted to indicate the bearing of the suspension. The purpose of the study was to explore in which ways suspension of Aid provision by the WFP from 2007 to 2011 affected the school meals programme and the socio-economic status of the beneficiaries of the programme in the Chiradzulu district in Malawi. Participants in the study were three teachers at two schools where the programme is offered and four parents from the two schools who were involved in the administration of the programme. A qualitative research approached was used and a case study design was applied at two schools in the Chiradzulu district where the WFP’s school meals programme was implemented. Semi-structure interview schedules that were pre-tested were used during the individual interviews conducted with parents and teachers. The school meals programme is still implemented at the two schools today. The main findings revealed that donor aid suspension affected the continued implementation of the school meals programme and the socio-economic wellbeing of the programme’s beneficiaries. There was a reduction in school attendance by learners, increased absenteeism, evidence of malnourishment amongst learners and increasing pressure on parents to provide breakfast for the learners before they went to school. For the programme to have a sustainable impact it is recommended that its implementation must not be interrupted by aid suspension, the programme must be expanded but remain targeted and not become universal and the Malawi government assume full responsibility of the programme and stop reliance on foreign funding.