Malawi is in the grip of a severe food shortage, not only because of the floods that caused one failed harvest, but also due to serious policy blunders. In the months before the famine was officially acknowledged, the country’s grain reserves were sold off. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people have died as a result of food shortages. This report asks why. This report is part of the World Development Movement’s (WDM) ongoing campaign, started in 1985, to end the vicious cycle of debt and poverty, and stop the damaging economic conditions imposed by donors, particularly through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

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