Overview
Magway Region with 3.9 million, representing 7 percent of the country’s population, is located in the central part of Myanmar, bordering with Sagaing Region in the north, Mandalay Region in the east, Bago Region in the south and Rakhine and Chin States in the west. Despite largest land area, economically, it is one of the poorest regions in Myanmar due to lack of job and poor infrastructure and services. Moreover, limited access to land, inadequate farming inputs, drought, and scarcity of water and declination of soil fertility also lead to food insecurity of the vulnerable. Rural population accounts for 15 percent of the total in the region. The chronic food insecurity causes migration of the local people and many social and health problems. The chronic poverty and high vulnerability to shocks are widespread throughout the region. A food security, poverty and nutrition survey conducted in 2013 by WFP and Save the Children in the Dry Zone - large part of Magway, Mandalay and lower part of Sagaing Divisions - reported that 26 percent of the people in Dry Zone live below the poverty line and 18 percent is food-insecure.
Chronic and acute malnutrition was found to be widespread among children under the age of five with 12 percent acutely malnourished while 27 percent chronically malnourished. In 2003, WFP opened a sub-office in Pakkoku to provide relief food assistance to families, whose breadwinners contracted HIV/TB. The food assistance was provided through the direct support from Fund for HIV/AIDS for Myanmar (FAHM). Two years later, WFP sub office moved to Magway Town, to provide food assistance to the vulnerable communities, to improve their food security and nutritional status through its protracted relief and recovery operations. Additionally, WFP operated emergency response for Pakkoku flash flood victims in 2011, Mandalay flood victims in 2012 and people affected by Meikhtila inter -communal violence in 2013.
At present, in cooperation with seven partners, WFP is providing food assistance to the food insecure and vulnerable populations in eight townships of Magway Region. In addition to traditional in-kind food assistance, WFP has employed cash based transfers (CBT) initially in cash for work activities and since late 2015, in relief activities for population affected by floods.