Recovery under way but drought issues remain

Two years after the onset of a devastating drought, Kenya is moving out of emergency and into a recovery phase, though there are still pockets that continue to feel the stresses of drought, especially in pastoralist areas, according to the latest UN donor alert for the country.

The focus of drought-related activities would be mainly on improving people's asset base and coping mechanisms, while the UN country team would continue to work on sector priorities in health, education, agriculture, water and sanitation, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The UN country team issued an inter-agency appeal in February 2001, updated in September to increase the overall appeal to US $177.1 million, which was 80 percent covered by funding pledges as of February 2002, according to OCHA figures. The 2002 donor alert is for $59,482,798.

Any occurrence of natural or man-made disaster, including conflict, population displacement and human rights, would also be addressed, it said in the inter-agency donor alert released on Saturday.

A critical issue to address was "the underlying causes of food insecurity that afflicts a large proportion of rural Kenyans, and link this with longer-term recovery programming", it said.

Many of the root causes of the crisis related to a rise in poverty in Kenya and the lack of infrastructure in key drought-affected areas, especially as donors were reluctant to invest in longer-term solutions because of "the current frosty climate" with the government, the report stated.

For many people experiencing chronic poverty, and whether the rains are good or not, "the solution to their problems is not short-term emergency interventions, but in longer-term strategies", it added.

Meanwhile, though food security prospects were generally improved, the outlook remained less favourable in Turkana District, Mandera, northern Marsabit and parts of Laikipia, which would require continued assistance (of 75 percent food rations) at least until September, it said. Other pastoral areas in various stages of recovery will need varying levels of assistance.

The drought in Kenya had exacerbated poverty and led to an increase in banditry and inter-ethnic fighting (over grazing rights and water resources, for instance), and these had restricted humanitarian access, held up food aid deliveries, infringed on the safety of aid workers, and endangered the lives of drought-affected communities, OCHA said.

The increasing proliferation of small arms in Kenya and within the region "continues to affect the security of civilians and humanitarian workers", it said.

In addition, "the impact of the [global] HIV/AIDS pandemic is starting to bite" - reducing household incomes, changing family structures, increasing chronic malnutrition as coping strategies break down, increasing the number of orphans (already estimated at around 1.3 million), and damaging the health and education sectors due to the loss of trained staff, Saturday's alert stated.

"The increase in poverty and the heightened vulnerability and food insecurity that results does not augur well," it added.

OCHA also identified a number of lessons learned from the recent drought experience as humanitarian operations move into the recovery phase. These included the need to:

- incorporate conflict resolution in drought recovery programmes
- boost traditional coping mechanisms and mitigate food aid dependency
- expand the coordination of early warning mechanisms on drought (and other emergencies) through arid and semiarid areas
- secure greater funding for often marginalised, drought-affected areas; and,
- generate finance for security matters, to facilitate access to some areas and avoid threatening incidents

The alert expressed the hope that relations between the Kenyan government and donors would improve over time, since the current situation meant that the pattern of funding was focused on emergency operations, and this could have a negative impact on poverty eradication efforts.