A nation of disasters: lessons on systemic risks and cascading impacts from Malawi's COVID-19 experience

This article examines Malawi’s COVID-19 experience as a case of systemic risk in a low-income, multi-hazard context. Using workshops, interviews, and desk research, it explores how the pandemic interacted with existing vulnerabilities and concurrent hazards such as floods and cholera, affecting health systems, livelihoods, education, governance, and social protection.

The findings show that COVID-19 amplified pre-existing fragilities in Malawi, creating cascading impacts across multiple sectors and intensifying inequalities, especially for women, children, informal workers, and rural communities. It also shows that concurrent crises overwhelmed response systems but stimulated important innovations, including urban cash transfers, digital coordination tools, and local production of essential supplies, highlighting the need for anticipatory, shock-responsive, and cross-sectoral disaster risk management.