Focus on the continued dangers of drought

The Meteorological Department of Kenya this week warned that many parts of the country will continue to experience reduced rainfall in November, a key month for the short rains, prolonging the current drought for an indefinite period.

Despite the onset of the short rains (traditionally September-November, though much less predictable in the past five to six years) in some parts of the country, assistant director William Nyakwada said that water, food and pasture problems would persist as most areas experienced less than 50 percent of the expected rainfall this month.

Drought conditions have persisted well beyond expectations in Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Tuesday in appealing for cash donations from donors to allow the purchase of relief food, especially from a bumper harvest of maize, within Kenya itself.

Rains were above normal in parts of the Rift Valley, central Kenya, Western Province and Nyanza, western Kenya, allowing for good crop production, but scarce rainfall during the long rains (March to May) had prevented the expected recovery of pasture and water sources in arid and semi-arid districts, the agency said.

Nyakwada said the situation was worrying because certain parts that had experienced drought conditions for the last three years would continue to be affected. The department has advised farmers in eastern and central parts of the country to plant drought-resistant and short maturing crops.

For the parts of the country that have already experienced severe drought, this lack of rainfall could delay livestock recovery and exacerbate the hardship conditions of much of the population, according to the Famine Early Warning System Network - http://www.fews.net

Much hope had hinged on the anticipated short rains, as pasture and potable water were becoming more and more scarce, increasing tensions and skirmishes around access to resources, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Districts currently in emergency phase are Turkana, Mandera, Isiolo. Those in alarm phase are Garissa, Wajir, Samburu and Baringo, while Marsabit, Moyale and Tana River are in alert phase, it added. See Kenya page at http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf

The UN food agency has more than 1,100 food-for-work projects in Kenya, with more than 340,000 people intended to benefit. It also intends to continue to provide supplementary food for more than 278,000 children under five years, as well as 84,000 nursing mothers and pregnant women.

More than 1.3 million school children are continuing to receive a midday meal through WFP's school feeding programme, in an effort to sustain school attendance in the face of drought-related hardship for families and communities.

Kenya is prone to cyclical droughts - major ones every decade, minor ones every three to four years and yearly droughts in northern parts of the country.

However, the drought caused by the continuous failure of rainfall between October 1998 to May 2001, part of the Greater Horn of Africa drought continuing in certain parts, has been described by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as a one in forty year event.

The effects of the drought were so severe in 1999 and early 2000 that Kenya declared it a national disaster on 13 June last year.

Six of Kenya's eight provinces were afflicted, including some not normally affected, and traditional methods were "totally ineffective in coping," according to a joint UNEP and Kenyan government report released on Tuesday, 20 October.

In 2000 and 2001, the worst combination of malnutrition and unhygienic practices in the drought-affected areas triggered a large-scale outbreak of communicable diseases, according to UNICEF. In Wajir District, northeastern Kenya, some 400 people were infected with cholera, while up to 4,000 others nationwide contracted other water borne diseases.

Malnutrition increased substantially in drought-affected districts and the drought undermined government and societal efforts to reduce poverty, according to the UNEP-Kenyan government report, Devastating Drought in Kenya: Environmental Impacts and Responses, released on Tuesday.

Yet, "despite the recurrence of drought and their devastating effects on the country, Kenya does not have a comprehensive drought policy" and coordination between the many institutions that address drought is inadequate, according to UNEP.

With the exception of a few projects in arid and semi-arid land areas, "drought is managed as a crisis and focuses on food, with no consideration of environmental implications ... yet environmental protection is the key to the long-term solution to managing drought," the UNEP-government report stated.

In Kenya, land-use interests such as agriculture, tourism, ranching, wildlife management, forestry, water conservation, mining and human settlement are often in conflict - a situation worsened by comprehensive government policies on land use, it said.

"For a country that depends highly on natural resources for its economic growth, there is a need to integrate drought management into national development processes," the report added.

Flooding related to the El Nino rains of 1997 and 1998 had breached embankments and caused severe soil erosion, which reduced water-storage capacity. This was further exacerbated by poor quality of the catchment areas as a result of poor land-use practices, weak enforcement of regulations (on water rights, smallholder farming etc) and deforestation.

There was also a high level of water wastage through poor distribution systems and inefficient irrigation practices, the report stated.

Tuesday's report also highlighted the danger "of creating a dependency syndrome by providing relief food to communities, especially in areas with chronic drought, without asking them to contribute something in return."

For instance, it said, in Machakos and Makueni, south-central Kenya, "some people have even stopped growing any food and depend on the small amounts of food relief." And in Central Province and parts of Eastern Province, leaders were reluctant to introduce food aid unless absolutely necessary for fear of creating dependence.

Last year, WFP provided food assistance to more than 4.4 million victims of the drought in Kenya.

A recent emergency update from UNICEF reported that while malnutrition rates among children in drought-affected areas had generally stabilised after reaching heights of sometimes two to three times normal levels in the middle of last year, there were still pockets where global acute malnutrition rates were between 15 percent and 20 percent.

Among those it identified Ijara (southern Garissa District), Baragoi/Nyiro (in Samburu), Laisamis (Marsabit) and Wajir.

"There is a lot of maize available in Kenya and its market price is well below average, so we urged donors to give us cash to buy relief food locally", said WFP Country Director for Kenya, Tesema Negash.

"Local producers are having difficulties in selling their maize stocks. If we buy food from them we can have a double role: assisting the populations affected by the drought, as well as supporting local farmers," he added.

However, many communities have repeatedly said that it is not food aid they need but the means to restore their household food security - through competitively-priced inputs (seeds, tools, fertilisers) in agricultural areas, and through rehabilitation of herds and water sources, as well as the improvement of security, in pastoralist areas, according to humanitarian sources.

Nor does food assistance address an underlying problem that the market system is not transferring food from areas of surplus to those with food shortages, not least because the hardships faced by pastoralists leave them without the means to access what is available for sale, they added.

Another danger, that of too narrow a focus on food issues, was highlighted by UNICEF in its latest emergency update on 26 October:

"Part of the reason for the continued high malnutrition rates may be an over-emphasis on food aid without due consideration to issues of access to health, routine immunisation coverage, the micronutrient status of populations and caring practices at the household level - all of which have a bearing," the agency stated.

Among the broader factors the UNEP-Kenyan government study identified to explain the particular severity of the effects of drought in Kenya in 1999 and 2000, were: the breakdown of traditional coping methods; an unsustainable land tenure system that was increasing population numbers on reduced land areas due to development of land formerly used for dry-grazing; poor security, especially in arid and semi-arid areas; and inadequate preparedness.

Drought-related loss of livelihoods led to a high rate of charcoal burning, illegal logging of protected trees and livestock grazing in forests which, among other practices, had contributed to an increase in deforestation, according to the UNEP-government report.

Though forests are important for water conservation, the forest degradation rate is high and excisions are increasing the loss of forest cover, it added, recommending a review of excision policy and a reduction in the practice. It also proposed allowing the non-destructive use of forest resources by local communities to enhance the sustainability of forests.

Among the recommendations in Tuesday's UNEP-government report were: strengthening of water catchment provisions and early warning systems for food security and environmental management; and better monitoring of areas vulnerable to drought.

It also suggested measures to address the sustainable management of forests; strengthen agricultural practices that accommodate drought; promote the use of renewable energy sources to reduce deforestation; and, increase the institutional capacity to deal with drought.

With the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change predicting an increase in "extreme weather events", such as drought and flooding, it will become more and more important to protect natural resources that will sustain communities through the periods of hardship, according to UNEP.

It is hoped that Tuesday's report will be used "to minimise the impacts of future droughts and contribute to the government's efforts to reduce poverty, because environmental protection is the key to achieving poverty reduction," said UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer and Kenyan Environment and Natural Resources Minister, Noah Katana Ngala.