After a decision by the Board of Directors of the African Development Fund (ADF), held on Wednesday, Malawi will receive €45.07 million for the government’s response to the medical, social and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The package consists of $24,48 million and a loan of $20,59 million to the South African Development Community ( SADC) as direct budget support, which supply an earlier amount of $8,9 million to six regions including Malawi under the CoVID-19 Response Grants from the Bank last month.
The budgetary support intervention would help to improve the Malawi National COVID-19 Preparation and Answer Plan that has been formed with multi-stakeholder organizations including governments, development partners and NGOs. The Bank’s funding is aimed at saving lives; improved systems of public health; protection of livelihoods by strengthening social security services; promotion of economic resilience and work safety.
“The EIB will help to mitigate the negative impacts of the Malawi response program on the financial and current balance in Malawi, thus consolidating its recovery efforts during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic,” said Acting Bank Country Manager Eyerusalem Fasika. “The financial support will also improve its economic recovery. “The funding will contribute to laboratory and diagnostic capabilities for testing, monitoring, isolating and treating the case of COVID-19, strengthening of COVID-19 case management systems, train frontline healthcare workers and restoration of COVID-19 services, especially for patients with underlying medical conditions,” she added.
Malawi ‘s funding for this project is part of the Bank’s multi-country package of $41.1 million in funding for the region, for Mozambique $41 million, and for Sao Tome and Principe $10.23 million. In order to ensure effective implementation of the EIB ‘s assistance for the regional Member States, it was merged into a community to handle this Multi-Country programme.
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On 20 March 2020, Malawi declared a state of disaster and on 8 April, it released its National Plan on Preparation for COVID-19. Malawi reported 3,149 COVID-19 confirmatory cases by 21 July 2020, with 1,256 recoveries and 71 deaths.
Data Source: African Development Bank Group (AfDB)