maize is required. A market assessment indicates that 73 per cent of the affected population will require in-kind food response while 27 per cent will require cash-based interventions. Prices of staple maize are high compared to same time last year and households are likely to resort to unsustainable food and livelihood coping strategies in order to afford very high food prices. Government and partners need to respond immediately in affected areas to ameliorate suffering. There is a need for Government to implement expanded public works programmes to assist communities to access food on the market, as well as scale up social protection interventions such as cash transfers and school feeding programmes. In addition, Government will need to move in quickly to import maize in view of the high demand created by the regional shortage. There is also a need for Government and partners to promote irrigation in areas with irrigation potential. Targeting The response will take the form of in-kind food distributions and cash and voucher transfers, depending on the location and point in time. The three modalities will be implemented simultaneously; however, they will not overlap. The Food Security Cluster will work with partners to deliver complementary assistance that links the provision of food assistance with relevant services to help lift affected populations to the subsistence level required for re-engaging in recovery and development processes. Complementary assistance will aim to promote linkages between relief and resilience building, and social support activities through social behavioural change communication (SBCC) sessions for promotion of infant and young child feeding and hygiene practices as well as prevention of sexual and gender based violence and sexual exploitation and abuse. animal rearing as appropriate. In addition pregnant and lactating women will receive Super cereal and children 6-23 months will receive super cereal plus. Response to Date The Government of Malawi is leading the response, through the Department of Disaster Management Affairs (DoDMA), with support from humanitarian partners, including NGOs, the UN and donors. A National Food Insecurity Response Plan for 2015/2016 was compiled previously in 2015, requesting $146 million for response, but remains underfunded (with a funding gap of 49 per cent). The cluster system has been activated, and inter-cluster meetings have been taking place to ensure proper cross-sector coordination. The Office of the Vice President, through DoDMA, convenes meetings of the Humanitarian Response Committee to monitor the implementation progress of the food insecurity response. In addition, DoDMA is facilitating the finalization of the 2015/16 National Contingency Plan as well as district level contingency plan reviews and coordination capacity strengthening before launching the 2016/2017 Response Plan. Gaps The funding gap is $264 million from a total of $380 million. The American government has pledged $55 million and the Chinese government has pledged in kind donation of rice worth $9 million. The Government of Malawi has allocated about $50 million for maize purchases in the 2016/17 draft budget. There is an urgent need to import maize, due to the current maize deficit and increasing maize prices. Various nutrition sensitive actions related to diversified food production, consumption of diversified foods, infant and young child feeding practices, water, sanitation and hygiene will be included through SBCC activities such as nutrition education to increase knowledge on food preparation and utilization, dietary diversification, sanitation and hygiene, the use of energy saving technologies such as fuel efficient stoves and small 51