Following a decision by the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund on Wednesday, Malawian government will receive $45.07m to finance its response to the health, social and economic impacts of the Coronavirus Disease.
The Acting Bank Country Manager, Eyerusalem Fasika, stated on Thursday that the package comprised a loan of $24.48m and a grant of $20.59m as direct budget support, complementing an earlier sum of $8.9m to six countries in the region, under the bank’s COVID-19 Response grants to the Southern African Development Community countries last month.
The budget support intervention will help boost the Malawi National COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan that has been developed with stakeholders, including development partners and non-governmental organisations.
It aims at protecting lives and livelihoods, strengthening public health systems, and fostering economic resilience.
“The bank’s support to Malawi’s COVID-19 Response Plan will help to cushion the economy from the negative impact on fiscal and current account balances, hence consolidating Malawi’s recovery efforts during this unprecedented time of COVID-19.
“The support will contribute towards laboratory and diagnostic capacity to test, trace, isolate and treat COVID-19 cases, strengthen the COVID-19 case management systems, train frontline healthcare workforce, and restore services disrupted by COVID-19, particularly for patients with underlying health conditions,” she said.
The support to Malawi is part of the multi-country COVID-19 support package by the bank that includes $41.1m to Madagascar, $41.1m to Mozambique and $10.23m to Sao Tome and Principe. The processing of this multi-country programme was combined into one group to ensure efficiency in the preparation of the bank’s assistance to regional member countries.
Malawi declared a State of Disaster on March 20, 2020 and launched its National COVID-19 Preparedness Response Plan on April 8. By July 21, 2020, Malawi recorded 3,149 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 1,256 recoveries and 71 deaths.
