Highlights
National coping levels remain unchanged since the last data collection round. While still food insecure, coping levels in Chiradzulu-Mulanje-Thyolo-Zomba- Phalombe in the southern region improved significantly, likely attributed to food and cash distribution.
There have been significant improvements in the perceptions of food security across southern and central Malawi, with humanitarian assistance focused on the region likely contributing to the improvement. Nevertheless, households in southern Malawi still have more negative perceptions of food security than in other parts of the country.
Food prices remain high across the country, especially in the southern region. Erratic rain has eroded labour opportunities, food production, wages and purchasing power.
Methodology: SMS and live call surveys
January 2016 marked the second round of remote data collection. The survey was conducted using text messaging (SMS) on 4 January 2016 reaching 1000 households. Participants were randomly selected from a national database of mobile subscribers. Respondents opted in to the SMS survey and were asked questions on socio-demographics, coping behaviour and manual labour wages as well as an open-ended question on food security. To increase completion rates an airtime credit incentive of US 50 cents was provided to respondents who successfully completed the survey. Results are aggregated due to small sample sizes within districts.
WFP Malawi’s in-house call centre has been operational since the end of December 2015 and the has been collecting information from key informants on food commodity prices (maize, cow peas, pigeon peas and beans), food availability and market accessibility.
It is acknowledged that the SMS and phone surveys contain inherent response biases towards better-off and literate households. Due to the possible biases in the data, this bulletin avoids giving precise estimates of food insecurity, but rather captures patterns and trends. Additional information on methodology is available in the first bulletin and online.