For six years, 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 that catastrophes between 2015 and 2023 have cost the country USD 1.19 billion.
Dodma’s deputy director for recovery, Fedson Chikuse, said the department is still making some assessments to quantify the country’s actual losses.
“The recovery cost is estimated at $1.7 billion, mostly to support the affected families with relief items and renovation of destroyed infrastructure,” said 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 Organisation’s State of the Climate in Africa 2023 report, African countries are each losing an average of 2-5 percent 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 percent 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 $30 and 50 billion annually over the next decade, which represents 2-3 percent of the region’s overall GDP.
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 recalled how the cyclone washed away her family’s house, and the livestock they had relied on for food and income.
“Since 2019, we have faced more disasters than luck here,” Mtupa said. “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 $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 gathere
