Precarious food situation in the northwest

An estimated 184,000 people in northwestern Kenya's pastoral districts of Turkana and Marsabit face a precarious food situation following poor rainfall in some areas over the past two seasons, and an upsurge in conflict, a report said on Friday. According to the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS-Net), food security and nutritional assessments coordinated by the UN Children's Fund and implemented by the Kenyan health ministry, the Arid Lands Resource Management Project, OXFAM-GB and World Vision had confirmed alarmingly high food insecurity in Katilu, Lokori and Lokitaung divisions in Turkana District, and Maikona, North Horr, and Loiyangalani divisions in Marsabit District. "In view of poor rains, conflict and other hazards, the food security of pastoralist groups is increasingly fragile. One poor season seems sufficient to precipitate a crisis... Current pasture, browse and water are unlikely to support livestock until the beginning of the long rains in early April," FEWS-Net said. "As expected, the condition of cattle, camels and goats has deteriorated significantly as trekking distances between watering points have increased to over 20 km while the frequency of waterings has been reduced to once every three days." It said nutritional assessments had reported "distressing rates of child malnutrition" in both districts. "Preliminary results indicate that in Loiyangalani and Maikona Divisions of Marsabit, global acute malnutrition (GAM) rates for children under five years is an alarming 23.6 percent while the severe acute malnutrition (SAM) rate is 1.6 percent," the report said. "The teams also found that the stunting rate for children was 19.9 percent, with a severe stunting rate of 6.6 percent, indicating serious chronic malnutrition. Results for Turkana District were even worse: in the eastern zone that includes Lokitaung Division, the GAM rate was 34.4 percent, while the SAM rate was 5.4 percent," it added. FEWS-Net said critical malnutrition among the worst-affected pastoral households was a function of declining food availability at the present time, exacerbated by chronic food insecurity. It endorsed a recommendation by the Kenya Food Security Steering Group (KFSSG) to immediately distribute 1,268 mt of food to the 184,000 persons in Turkana and Marsabit districts for the next three months, together with supplementary and therapeutic feeding programmes for malnourished individual children. FEWS-Net also recommended continuous food security and nutrition monitoring by the ALRMP and the KFSSG in areas of both districts that were likely to suffer similar food insecurity, should the April-June 2004 long rains fail. It supported a recommendation by OXFAM-GB that livelihood recovery programmes be put into place to transform pastoralism and strengthen the future coping capacities of the worst-affected pastoral households. FEWS-Net also urged the government of Kenya to put into place conflict resolution and peace-building initiatives, saying this would avert alarmingly high food insecurity reported even in areas that experienced favourable agro-climatic conditions last year, such as southern Turkana District.