NAIROBI, March 22 (NNN-KBC) — The drought situation in Kenya is still dire with Marsabit and Turkana counties sliding into an emergency. Nine other counties are in the alarm stage while 11 others are in the alert phase.
“This is because of five consecutive failed rains. The last time this country had rain in good measure was in March 2020 at the onset of COVID,” said Rebecca Miano, the Cabinet Secretary for the East African Community, Arid and Semi Arid Lands and Regional Development during the “The Score Card” show that premiered on KBC Channel One Television Tuesday night.
“But October, November, December 2020 the rains failed, again March to May 2021 the rains failed, October to December of 2021 the rains failed, and also 2022, the two seasons performed dismally.”
The CS says the government has since 2021, when drought was declared a national disaster, upscaled its response towards drought through the provision of food relief, water tracking, livestock offtake, repair of boreholes and provision of nutrition.
Further, the government has in the last one month bought food worth about Ksh. 2 billion that has been distributed to about 4.5 million people.
She made the remarks at a time the National Steering Committee on Drought Response has announced that it raised Ksh. 1 billion for drought mitigation as it targets one million Kenyans in the latest phase of food distribution.
The Committee under the WaKenya Tulindane Campaign is this week set to distribute food in Garissa, Nyeri, Taita Taveta and Narok counties.
Other counties set to benefit from the food that will be distributed to 48,560 households targeting 290,000 Kenyans are Marsabit, Meru, Baringo, Kwale and Makueni.
“We are grateful to Kenyans for the contributions thus far that have reached Ksh. 1 billion even as we align as a Committee on the short, medium and long term plans. We have started implementing some of them such as a partnership with the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) to rehabilitate between 250 to 300 boreholes that are expected to give one million Kenyans access to water,” said Peter Ndegwa, Chairman, National Steering Committee on Drought Response.
The committee has so far distributed food to over 400,000 Kenyans in 67,000 households since December last year in Marsabit, Turkana, Mandera, Wajir, Kilifi, Kitui, Kajiado, Isiolo, Samburu and Meru Counties.
Kenyans can contribute through PayBill 880990, which is available on all mobile networks and through the National Drought Mitigation Appeal Fund under KCB Bank, Riverside branch through account number 1305486137.
The latest data from the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) shows that 6 million Kenyans from 32 counties are food insecure with the persisting drought set to continue due to depressed rainfall. — NNN-KBC
