UNICEF points to continuing effects of drought

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Kenya has launched a US $7.85 million appeal to help provide humanitarian assistance to women and children, especially in drought-affected and marginalised areas.

The agency has particularly highlighted the effects of prolonged drought in many parts of the country in terms of the potential for disease outbreaks, forced population movements and internal displacement, and a negative impact on participation rates in education.

UNICEF is taking a lead role, alongside the government of Kenya, in the emergency response in the health and nutrition, water and sanitation, and education sectors.

Persistent drought had "severely affected" water sources in many parts of the country, particularly in North Eastern Province, UNICEF stated in its Humanitarian Appeal for Children and Women and children for 2002, released last week.

It warned that the "prevailing water shortages and population movements" along the northern border were greatly increasing the chances of outbreaks of diseases like cholera, typhoid, measles and diarrhoea - especially when health services were neglected in the affected areas, and routine immunisation coverage was low.

Part of the funding requested - amounting to some US $ 4.6 million - would be directed to assisting the health and nutritional needs of the drought-stricken population, while US $1.85 million would go to support education, UNICEF stated. The remainder would go to help support water and environmental sanitation activities to prevent diseases outbreaks, it added.

The agency said that up to 45 percent of the boreholes and wells in drought-affected areas had broken down due to overuse, resulting in an increased distance between pasture and water for pastoralists, increased competition and conflicts over pasture and water, and "a large number of internally displaced people in areas such as Wajir and central Garissa".

Only 33 percent of the rural population have access to safe drinking water, and 26 percent to adequate sanitation, according to UNICEF.

The drought was also having a negative impact on education in North Eastern Province, causing a decrease in primary school enrolment by about 10 percent in 2001 - which had more than eroded the consistent gains achieved from 1993 to 1998, the agency said.

Gross enrolment rates for secondary schools in North Eastern Province were as low as 5.8 percent, compared to a Kenyan national average of 30 percent, it added.

In drought-affected areas, children face additional demands such as fetching water and fuel over greater distances, and are spending greater time on family chores to ensure survival.

The spread of HIV/AIDS is further compounding the particular nutritional vulnerability of women and children in the country. "High-risk practices are likely to increase in the face of this drought emergency, where actions taken to ensure survival of a family often include high-risk behaviour, including an increase in commercial sex," UNICEF stated.

At the height of the Horn of Africa drought in 2000, some 3.2 million Kenyans in 22 districts were dependent on food aid, with malnutrition rates soaring to rates as high as 40 percent, more than three times the normal level, according to the agency's figures.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) predicted in January that, despite a "generally favourable" 2001 short rains season, food insecurity would persist in many of Kenya's pastoral areas in 2002, and many households would remain extremely susceptible to disaster.

A recent report prepared by Kenya's Office of the President (OP) and the WFP noted that areas within the pastoral zones where the size of livestock herds had been hit by years of drought, the El Nino weather patterns (of 1997-98) and low-level conflicts were of particular concern.

"It must be stressed... that, after intermittent or continuous drought since late 1999, recovery is not immediate in the pastoral livelihood zones," they reported in their Kenya Short Rains Assessment 2001.

Overall, however, most areas of Kenya were starting to recover from the severe drought of 1999-2000, and the general food security situation had improved when compared with the same time last year, the report added.