Malawi receives $45.07 million COVID-19 emergency fund from AfDB

The Board of Directors of the African Development Fund made the decision on Wednesday July 22, 2020, to send a fund totalling $45.07 million to Malawi in order to finance the government’s response to the health, social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The fund comprises a loan of $24.48 million, and a grant of $20.59 million as direct budget support, and complements an earlier sum of $8.9 million to six countries in the region, including Malawi, under the Bank’s COVID-19 Response grants to the Southern African Development Community countries.

The budget support intervention will help boost the Malawi National COVID-19 Preparedness and Response Plan that has been developed with multi-stakeholders including government, development partners and non-government organizations.

Acting Bank Country Manager, Eyerusalem Fasika said, “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 pandemic.”

“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 added.

Malawi declared a State of Disaster on 20 March 2020 and launched its National COVID-19 Preparedness Response Plan on 8 April. As of 21 July 2020, Malawi had recorded 3,149 confirmed cases of COVID-19, with 1,256 recoveries and 71 deaths