For six years now, Malawi has been reeling from climate change-induced disasters. Tropical Storm Ana, cyclones Idai, Gombe and Freddy and – most recently – El Niño have all caused huge economic losses that will take a long time to recover from. Malawi’s Department of Disaster Management Affairs (Dodma) estimates catastrophes between 2015 and 2023 have cost the country USD 1.19 billion.
Dodma’s deputy director for recovery, Fedson Chikuse, tells Dialogue Earth the department is still making some assessments to quantify the country’s actual losses.
“The recovery cost is estimated at USD 1.7 billion, mostly to support the affected families with relief items and renovation of destroyed infrastructure,” says Chikuse. “Much of the recovery cost leans towards rebuilding in the agriculture sector, which is the backbone of Malawi’s economy.”
According to the World Meteorological Organization’s “State of the Climate in Africa 2023” report, African countries are each losing an average of 2-5% of their gross domestic product (GDP) annually to “climate-related hazards, including droughts, floods, cyclones and heatwaves”. Further, many African countries are being forced to divert up to 9% of their budgets to respond to extreme weather.
The report estimates the cost of adaptation to climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa to be between USD 30-50 billion annually over the next decade, which represents 2-3% of the region’s overall GDP.
Recounting Malawi’s loss and damage
In 2019, hundreds of people were killed and hundreds of thousands more were affected by Cyclone Idai, which made landfall near the port city of Beira in central Mozambique on 14 March. It brought winds of up to 177 kilometres per hour and caused severe flooding.
The tropical storm also claimed lives in Mozambique’s northern neighbour, Malawi, where it destroyed infrastructure, classrooms and government offices.
Dialogue Earth spoke to Pilirani Mtupa, a 35-year-old resident of Mbenje in Malawi’s southern Nsanje district, which has become a disaster hotspot. She is one of about 53,000 people yet to rebuild their homes following Cyclone Idai, which heavily affected four districts in this region.
Mtupa recalls how the cyclone washed away her family’s house, and the livestock they had relied on for food and income.
We have not been able to do farmingPilirani Mtupa, Mbenje resident
activities like we used to
“Since 2019, we have faced more disasters than luck here,” says Mtupa. “We have not been able to do farming activities like we used to do some time back. The subsequent disasters like [Tropical Storm] Ana, Freddy and the dry spell this year did not spare us.” The government has estimated Malawi’s total damages and losses due to flooding to have been USD 220 million in 2019 alone.
In 2022, Malawi was hit hard once again when Tropical Storm Ana struck. Its strength left a trail of destruction that affected more districts than Cyclone Idai’s. The floods hit electricity infrastructure as well as homes, leaving towns in darkness as the waters rose. The whole nation was plunged into an electricity blackout, and some Malawians were without power for days.
According to data gathered and published by the Red Cross in late 2023, Tropical Storm Ana killed at least 46 people and injured another 206. Swollen rivers drowned livestock and submerged fields, ruining livelihoods. In total, 115,388 hectares of crops were destroyed. More than 200 schools lost their classrooms, leaving over 114,218 pupils without learning materials and facilities.
As Malawi began healing from the impact of Ana, Cyclone Freddy came in March 2023. It wreaked untold havoc. The World Meteorogical Organization labelled Freddy the longest tropical cyclone on record (36 days). The cyclone dropped six months of rainfall in six days, triggering floods and mudslides across the country.
Rosebay Suman is from the village of Sumaila in southern Malawi’s Machinga district. Cyclone Freddy left an indelible mark on her life: “I have little to say about Cyclone Freddy. I lost my son and husband that to date cannot be traced. On my own, I cannot feed these children you see here.”
A Malawian government report on Cyclone Freddy found its damage amounted to USD 506.7 million, while USD 680.4 million was required for recovery and reconstruction.
Then, in early 2024, El Niño struck the region. It triggered a sustained dry spell that affected close to two million farming households, according to the government’s preliminary assessments.
El Niño is a climate pattern in which the surface water of the east-central tropical Pacific Ocean warms to significantly above average. This affects rainfall patterns and weather across the world, raising temperatures globally for its duration.
El Niño is part of a phenomenon called the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). El Niño events do not occur on a regular schedule, but on average appear every two to seven years. The opposite, cooler phase is called La Niña.
During La Niña, cooler-than-average sea temperatures are experienced in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific. Like El Niño, it affects patterns of rainfall and atmospheric pressure worldwide.
The devastating effects of El Niño moved Malawi’s president, Lazarus Chakwera, to declare a state of disaster on 23 March.
“About 749,113 hectares of maize have been affected, representing 44.3% of the national crop area,” Chakwera said. “This extent of damage would require close to 600,000 metric tonnes of maize valued at K357.6 billion [USD 190 million] for the humanitarian response.”
At the continental level, a World Meteorological Organization report, “Atlas of Mortality and Economic Losses from Weather, Climate and Water Extremes”, says these extremes generated 1,695 disasters in Africa between 1970 and 2019. The associated death toll is 731,747, while the damages are estimated to total USD 38.5 billion.
Dampening development aspirations
In January 2021, the government of Malawi launched a development agenda: Malawi 2063. “MW2063” seeks to transform Malawi into a wealthy, self-reliant, industrialised upper-middle-income country by 2063.
This blueprint projects that an annual average economic growth rate of 6% could make Malawi a lower-middle-income nation by 2030; the per-capita income range would become USD 1,006-3,955. This aspiration is contained in its initial 10-year implementation plan, named MIP-1.
According to the Malawi National Planning Commission, which is spearheading MW2063, recent disasters have hampered progress. The commission’s director general, Thomas Chataghalala Munthali, tells Dialogue Earth that while disaster mitigation was factored into MW2063 and MIP-1, these events have been worse than expected.
“Disasters and other shocks are part of life and Malawi will continue to face them going forwards,” says Munthali. “But if you look at the impact experienced in the past three years, our attainment of MIP-1 hangs in the balance.”
He fears the country may not attain lower-middle-income status by 2030 as planned: “We may take a little more years to achieve that. This eventually may affect our 2063 vision.”
Calling for increased climate finance
Meanwhile, Malawi’s former president, Joyce Banda, thinks countries like Malawi should be supported with finance for climate change adaptation.
Banda – who champions the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance – tells Dialogue Earth she advocated for a substantial loss and damage fund at COP29, on behalf of developing countries such as Malawi. She says the world’s developing countries need about USD 1.3 trillion annually between now and 2030 to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and to pay for the damage it will continue to cause.
“The amount that countries like Malawi require to rebuild is huge,” says Banda. “At the moment, Malawi is faced with a lot of economic challenges. The rebuilding process requires concerted efforts. That has been my call at COP29 and everywhere I have gone with advocacy for increased funds.”
As the frequency and intensity of natural disasters continue to escalate, Malawi is standing at a critical crossroads. The relentless impact of cyclones, droughts and floods threatens to derail its ambitious socioeconomic goals, as encapsulated by MW2063.
Without robust strategies and substantial international support to grow more resilient to climate change, Malawi’s dream of transforming into a self-reliant, industrialised nation risks being washed away in the storms.
