UK donates 2.25 million pounds for food aid

The UN World Food Programme on Friday welcomed a 2.25 million pounds (sterling) donation, equivalent to some US $3.24 million, from the British government to help feed over three million Kenyans affected by drought - which affected the country severely in 2000 and earlier this year, and is still continuing in parts of the country.

"We are very pleased with this donation because it allows us to assist drought victims while supporting local farmers and the Kenyan economy," Tesema Negash, WFP Country Director for Kenya, said in a statement.

"It [the contribution] brings Britain's total contribution to drought relief since 1999 to 19 million pounds, most of which has been for the local purchase and transport of food," WFP quoted Matthew Wyatt, head of the UK Department for International Development (DfID) in Eastern Africa, as saying.

Despite recent rains across most of Kenya drought conditions have persisted in much of the north and east of the country, exacerbating food insecurity for pastoralist communities in those regions, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Wednesday, 12 December.

Drought in Kenya's arid and semi-arid regions, which began at the end of 1999, had persisted "well beyond expectations", WFP said. High levels of poverty had prevented entire communities from benefiting form the good maize harvest experienced in other parts of Kenya.

"No real recovery from drought is guaranteed as yet and deaths are still being reported in Mandera [northeastern Kenya] and even northern Wajir [northeastern Kenya] although there is good grazing in other locales," OCHA said in its situation update for November.

The food situation in East Africa has improved markedly in 2001, with good harvests realised or expected in Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda, reflecting favourable weather conditions, the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported on Thursday.

However, successive poor rains in pastoral areas of the region and northwards, particularly in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, continued to cause acute food shortages and the migration of thousands of people in search of water and food, it said.

Pastoral populations in Kenya continued to depend on food assistance due to drought conditions that have persisted for the past three years, it added.

In Kenya, overall food supply has improved considerably due to favourable rains in major cereal- producing areas but "a precipitous decline in maize prices is negatively impacting on farmers' incomes," the FAO reported.

WFP made a special appeal to donors in October for cash to buy some 60,000 mt of food to support 3.1 million people until March 2001.

"By providing cash rather than in-kind contributions, we aim to enable WFP to respond speedily and flexibly to needs on the ground," Wyatt said.

Despite the UK donation, the UN food agency said it required a further US $10 million to provide some 35,000 MT of cereals to feed drought-affected people in Kenya in the coming months.