World Food Programme (WFP) together with Baringo County government have come together to mitigate the hunger situation in three most affected sub counties of Baringo South, Tiaty East and Tiaty West after failed rainfalls that has rendered residents vulnerable.
Governor Benjamin Cheboi said Wednesday during the launch of two policies that will aid in curbing food insecurity in the region where WFP country director Lauren Landis was in attendance the severe droughts situation in the region was at an alarming state due to the effects of climate change hence access to water and food was a challenge.
“We have launched the Smallholder Farmers Access to Public Institutional Markets Strategy policy that will encourage procurement of produce from smallholder farmers hence boost development and the Social protection policy that will address challenges facing vulnerable members of the society,” Cheboi said.
The County boss who said over sh100 million had so far been disbursed to 2778 households since September 2022 noted that they aim to move from dependency to resilience and urged partners to assist in setting up dams, water puns boreholes to aid irrigated agriculture hence be food secured as the cash transfer programs was not sufficient and sustainable.
Cheboi also added that he had instructed his team to provide training to youth, women and persons with disabilities (PWD) on the procurement processes to ensure that they have sufficient knowledge when procuring goods and services to ensure inclusivity.
Landis in her address stated that according to the International Integrated Phase Classification (IPC), the situation had gone from the previous IPC 3 being a critical phase to IPC 4 an alarming phase that has prompted the Lisha Jamii programme to add food supply on top of the previous cash transfer programme.
“Vulnerable residents are reviewing Sh. 6500 per month per household while 30,000 children who are malnourished need specialized food commodities and we will work with the county government to provide nutritional assistance to them,” she said.
In addition, she said they are working with health facilities in affected sub-counties to monitor the children and also added that they have come up with policies to assess short rains to ensure residents are food secured in future.
By Caroline Cherono and Michelle Yatich
