Âé¶¹ÒùÔº

May 21, 2025

Malawi's response to Cyclone Freddy offers lessons in managing disasters: First up, don't leave people in the lurch

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
× close
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Malawi is one of the most disaster-prone countries in Africa. In the past 15 years it has experienced 16 floods, one rainfall-related landslide, five storm-related disasters, and two severe droughts.

Since 2019, Malawi has declared several national disasters. This creates a sense of a country in permanent state of emergency. To make things worse, these are increasing in frequency and severity. The damage to the economy, are increasing.

In February 2023, Cyclone Freddy struck Malawi, causing floods and mudslides that people and . Over 900,000 people in Malawi were for a prolonged time.

The cyclone caused in Malawi. It was the world had ever experienced, with winds of up to 270 kilometers per hour.

Get free science updates with Science X Daily and Weekly Newsletters — to customize your preferences!

I am a political economy specialist who researches . Together with my co-author, Tione Mumbo Thindwa, I research how power is expressed during extreme weather disasters and what this means for the communities affected.

We set out to research how the different Malawian disaster institutions behaved during Cyclone Freddy. During this disaster, the government, humanitarian agencies and donor and cooperating agencies all had to work together to get relief to victims of the floods and mudslides (food and other essential items). Malawi's Department of Disaster Management Affairs coordinated the disaster response.

We interviewed 25 people from these different organizations and consulted the Soche Hill community in Blantyre to find out what they thought of the disaster response. Soche Hill was severely affected, experiencing that ripped apart homes.

Our team also looked at "disaster politics"—how politics and the conditions in a country affect government responses to major disasters. Our research aimed to find out how floods and mudslides could be managed better, and what kind of political arrangements are needed to reduce disaster risks and problems in Malawi.

that disaster institutions are routinely caught unaware during emergencies. Communities who are totally reliant on different levels of government and humanitarian organizations for assistance during disasters are left in the lurch.

Beyond flood waters: when institutions are 'caught unaware'

When increasingly frequent and intense floods are discussed, the focus is often on how well . But what's often missing is an understanding of the policies and legal tools used by other institutions that intervene after disasters.

Our research showed that after Freddy, there was a descent into chaos. The major problems were:

I am here, but who would want to live here after what happened? I am still traumatized and afraid.

The wider failures

Disasters cannot be dealt with as standalone events. Responses must include planning by local authorities, investments in preventing disaster, and an anticipation of how disasters will affect impoverished people more than others.

Our research showed that several factors contributed to disaster institutions being unable to cope with the scale of the damage after Cyclone Freddy:

A future direction

There's no one-size-fits-all for a world affected by climate-related disasters. For low-income countries in Africa, disasters add another expenditure line for resources that would otherwise be allocated to other equally pressing sectors. At the same time, the changing nature and intensity of disasters means that urgent and innovative approaches are required.

Disaster politics must change. Institutions must begin to behave in a dynamic and adaptable way. Specifically, they must start by working together to map all possible trajectories and outcomes of disasters. It is only by doing this that communities, different levels of government, donors and humanitarian agencies will have a plan in place to deal with future floods, mudslides and other disasters.

co-authored this article. She is the founder for Centre for Human Rights and Community Development, and researches gender, climate risk and politics in Malawi.

Provided by The Conversation

Load comments (0)

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's and . have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility:

fact-checked
trusted source
written by researcher(s)
proofread

Get Instant Summarized Text (GIST)

Malawi’s disaster response to Cyclone Freddy was hampered by inadequate equipment, poor anticipation of mudslides, lack of psychosocial support, underfunding, unclear policies, and insufficient community involvement. Institutional unpreparedness and political factors led to chaotic relief efforts. Effective disaster management requires coordinated planning, investment in prevention, and adaptive, inclusive governance.

This summary was automatically generated using LLM.