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Malawi has one of the highest rates of child stunting in the world—nearly 40% of children under five don’t grow to their full potential because they don’t get adequate nutrition in their first 1,000 days. It’s not that food doesn’t exist. It’s that families can’t access diverse, nutritious foods consistently. Smallholder farmers grow maize but lack the irrigation or storage to produce vegetables and legumes year-round. Food processors struggle to fortify products affordably. Mothers know breast milk is important but face cultural pressures and misinformation. The problem is complex, touching agriculture, health, economics, and culture.

The Department of Nutrition, HIV and AIDS is offering MWK 1.8 billion (roughly $1 million USD) per consortium to tackle this challenge through innovation. This grant funds integrated approaches that combine nutrition-sensitive agriculture (growing diverse, nutrient-dense foods), food processing and fortification (making nutritious products affordable and available), and behavior change (helping families understand and adopt better nutrition practices).

For Malawian enterprises, NGOs, and consortia willing to work across sectors and genuinely engage communities, this program provides capital and technical support to create sustainable nutrition solutions. The emphasis is on approaches that work for Malawi’s context—climate shocks, limited infrastructure, strong gender dynamics, and the need for solutions that can sustain themselves beyond donor funding.

What makes this program different is the integrated approach. You’re not just improving agriculture or just doing health education. You’re connecting the food system from production to consumption, ensuring that nutritious foods are grown, processed, available, affordable, and actually consumed by the families who need them most.

At a Glance

What This Funding Covers

The MWK 1.8 billion is structured to address nutrition from farm to table:

Climate-Smart Production (MWK 720 million): Malnutrition gets worse during climate shocks when harvests fail. This component funds drought-tolerant crops that provide nutrition even in bad years (orange-fleshed sweet potato, cowpeas, millet), small-scale irrigation so farmers can grow vegetables year-round, post-harvest storage to reduce losses and extend availability, and agricultural extension training on nutrition-sensitive farming. The goal is reliable access to diverse, nutritious foods even when rains fail.

Food Processing and Fortification (MWK 480 million): Raw crops need to become products families actually buy and use. This funding supports equipment for processing fortified flours, porridges, and complementary foods, quality assurance and certification to meet safety standards, packaging that preserves nutrients and appeals to consumers, and distribution systems that reach rural markets. Fortified products can fill nutrition gaps affordably if they’re produced well and distributed effectively.

Community Nutrition Campaigns (MWK 360 million): Having nutritious food available doesn’t help if families don’t know how to use it or face cultural barriers. This component funds behavior change communication through community health workers, radio programs in local languages, cooking demonstrations showing how to prepare nutritious foods, peer support groups for mothers, and digital tools for tracking and feedback. Changing behavior requires sustained, culturally appropriate engagement.

Monitoring and Evaluation (MWK 180 million): Nutrition programs need rigorous evidence to know what’s working. This funding supports nutrition assessments measuring child growth and dietary diversity, data systems that track progress and identify problems, learning studies that generate insights for improvement, and reporting aligned with Malawi’s national nutrition surveillance. Good data enables adaptive management and contributes to national learning.

Beyond the direct funding, selected consortia get access to technical assistance from nutrition and agriculture experts, connections to microfinance for women farmers and entrepreneurs, and participation in district nutrition platforms for coordination and learning.

Who Should Apply

This program is designed for organizations that can work across sectors and genuinely engage communities. You’re a good fit if:

You Have Cross-Sector Experience: The strongest applicants work at the intersection of agriculture, health, and livelihoods. Maybe you’re an agricultural NGO that’s added nutrition education. Maybe you’re a food processor working with smallholder farmers. Maybe you’re a health organization that’s started kitchen gardens. The key is understanding that nutrition requires integrated solutions, not siloed interventions.

You Can Build or Have Built Consortia: Few organizations have all the needed expertise. Strong applications involve partnerships—maybe an agricultural organization, a food processor, a health NGO, and a women’s cooperative. Each brings different strengths. Your consortium should show how partners will collaborate, not just work in parallel.

You’re Committed to Gender Equity: Women are typically primary caregivers and food preparers, but often have limited control over resources and decisions. Your approach should explicitly address gender—increasing women’s income and decision-making power, engaging men in nutrition, addressing cultural norms that affect feeding practices. This isn’t a checkbox; it’s central to nutrition outcomes.

You Have Community Relationships: Nutrition interventions fail when they’re imposed from outside. You need existing relationships with communities, evidence of participatory approaches, and willingness to adapt based on community feedback. If you’re new to the target communities, partner with local organizations that have those relationships.

Insider Tips for a Winning Application

Start with the Problem, Not Your Solution: Weak applications say “we want to distribute fortified porridge” without clearly explaining what nutrition problem that solves and why that’s the right approach. Start with specific nutrition challenges in your target area—what’s causing malnutrition? What barriers prevent families from accessing or consuming nutritious foods? Then explain how your approach addresses those specific barriers. Problem-driven proposals are more compelling.

Show Market Sustainability: Donor-funded food distribution can create dependency and collapse when funding ends. The strongest approaches build sustainable markets—farmers earn income growing nutritious crops, processors create viable businesses selling fortified products, families can afford to buy them. Show how your approach creates economic value that can sustain itself. This might include business models, pricing strategies, or linkages to existing markets.

Integrate Climate Resilience: Malawi faces increasing climate variability. Your agricultural interventions should explicitly address this—drought-tolerant varieties, water harvesting, diversification to reduce risk. Show you understand the climate context and have designed accordingly. Generic agricultural approaches that ignore climate won’t be competitive.

Engage Men and Community Leaders: Nutrition is often seen as “women’s work,” but men and community leaders influence household decisions and cultural norms. Your behavior change approach should engage men as supportive partners, work with traditional leaders to address harmful practices, and create community-wide understanding. Targeting only women limits your impact.

Use Local Evidence: Malawi has extensive nutrition research and program experience. Reference local studies, align with national nutrition guidelines, and show you understand what’s worked and what hasn’t in similar contexts. Applications that cite only international evidence or ignore local learning are weaker.

Plan for Scale: The program values innovations that could scale beyond your initial target area. Describe how your approach could be replicated—what would it take to expand to other districts? What partnerships or policy changes would enable scale? You don’t need to scale during the grant period, but show you’re thinking beyond a one-off pilot.

Application Timeline

The July 7, 2025 deadline is for full proposals. Here’s a realistic timeline:

March 2025: Conduct community consultations and baseline surveys. Talk to families about their nutrition challenges and barriers. Gather data on current stunting rates, dietary diversity, and food availability. This baseline is essential for your proposal and later evaluation.

April-May 2025: Develop your nutrition impact logic model showing how your activities will lead to improved nutrition outcomes. Finalize consortium partnerships and define roles. Create your detailed budget and procurement plans. Expect to spend 60-80 hours on the proposal plus significant time from technical staff.

June 2025: Finalize your proposal with all required components: nutrition baseline, gender strategy, partnership agreements, budget, and monitoring plan. Get necessary organizational approvals and endorsements from district authorities.

July 2025: Submit by the July 7 deadline. The Department reviews applications and may request presentations or site visits for competitive proposals.

August-September 2025: Grant agreements finalized. This includes negotiating specific nutrition targets, reporting requirements, and coordination with district nutrition platforms.

October 2025-March 2027: Implementation period aligned with agricultural cycles. You’ll report quarterly on nutrition outcomes, participate in district learning platforms, and adjust your approach based on what’s working.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can international organizations apply? International organizations can participate as consortium partners, but the lead applicant must be a registered Malawian organization. The program prioritizes local ownership and capacity building.

What if we don’t have all the technical expertise in-house? That’s expected and why consortia are encouraged. Partner with organizations that have complementary expertise. You can also budget for technical assistance or consultants to fill specific gaps. The key is showing you have a credible plan to access needed expertise.

How much community engagement is enough? Strong applications show multiple forms of engagement: baseline consultations to understand needs, participatory design where communities help shape interventions, community structures (like mother’s groups) for implementation, and feedback mechanisms for ongoing adaptation. One community meeting isn’t sufficient.

Can we work in urban areas or is this only for rural communities? Both urban and rural areas face malnutrition, though the causes differ. Urban proposals might focus more on affordability and availability of fortified foods, while rural proposals might emphasize production. Tailor your approach to your context and clearly explain the nutrition challenges you’re addressing.

What nutrition indicators should we track? At minimum, track child growth (height-for-age, weight-for-height), dietary diversity (number of food groups consumed), and infant and young child feeding practices. You might also track women’s nutrition, food security, or specific micronutrient indicators depending on your focus. Align with Malawi’s national nutrition indicators.

How do we demonstrate gender sensitivity? Show specific strategies: targeting women farmers for training and inputs, ensuring women’s voices in decision-making, addressing men’s roles in nutrition, tracking gender-disaggregated outcomes, and addressing cultural norms that affect women’s nutrition and agency. It’s about concrete actions, not just stating that gender matters.

Can we include emergency nutrition interventions? The program focuses on sustainable, systems-level change rather than emergency response. If your area faces acute malnutrition, you can include stabilization components, but the bulk of your approach should build long-term resilience and sustainable nutrition improvements.

How to Apply

Ready to tackle malnutrition through integrated innovation? Here’s what to do:

Step 1: Conduct community consultations and baseline nutrition assessments in your target area. Understand the specific nutrition challenges and their root causes.

Step 2: Build your consortium if you don’t already have partners. Identify organizations with complementary expertise in agriculture, food processing, health, or women’s empowerment.

Step 3: Develop your nutrition impact logic model. How will your activities lead to improved nutrition outcomes? What assumptions are you making? What evidence supports your approach?

Step 4: Create your gender strategy. How will you ensure women benefit economically and have greater decision-making power? How will you engage men and address harmful cultural practices?

Step 5: Prepare your full proposal with all required components: organizational documents, nutrition baseline, detailed budget, partnership agreements, gender strategy, and monitoring plan.

Step 6: Submit by the July 7, 2025 deadline through the Department’s application portal.

Visit the official program page for detailed guidelines and application materials: https://nutritionintl.org/

Questions about eligibility, technical requirements, or partnership development? The Department has established a support desk for applicants—contact information is available on their website. They can provide guidance and connect you with potential partners.