A Nation of Disasters: Lessons on Systemic Risks and Cascading Impacts From Malawi's COVID‐19 Experience

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the cascading and systemic nature of risks, in low-income, multi-hazard contexts such as Malawi, where pre-existing vulnerabilities amplified impacts across health, economic, and social systems. This study draws on qualitative data from stakeholder workshops and key informant interviews, triangulated with national statistics, to analyze how overburdened health systems, disrupted livelihoods, and inequitable resource distribution heightened socio-economic fragility. It also examines how concurrent hazards, including flooding and cholera outbreaks, interacted with the pandemic to intensify the crisis and expose limitations in Malawi's disaster risk management systems. The analysis highlights the importance of adaptive mechanisms, including urban cash transfer programs, for supporting vulnerable groups and mitigating cascading socio-economic impacts during crises. Key innovations, including digital tracking tools, local production of essential supplies, and scalable social protection mechanisms, emerged as pathways for strengthening institutional resilience. The findings emphasize the need for anticipatory, multi-hazard disaster risk management strategies that prioritize shock-sensitive social protection and cross-sectoral coordination to strengthen system-wide resilience. By situating qualitative insights with documented hazard and socio-economic patterns, this paper contributes to systemic risk scholarship in multi-hazard, resource-constrained environments.