The Government will roll out the second phase of Ending Drought Emergencies (EDE II) in July this year as part of its strategy to tackle food insecurity in the country.
The ten year program which will run to 2032 was arrived at after the expiry of the first phase in 2022.
Some of the gaps that were identified during the first phase ranged from lack of proper coordination among the relevant state and non-state actors necessitating the review of the initial working draft as envisioned by the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) in 2011.
Nyeri National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) Coordinator Lordman Lekalkul has told KNA the government hopes to have eradicated EDE within the next decade through undertaking grassroots sensitization forums involving all stakeholders.
The official was speaking today on the sidelines of an EDE sensitization workshop for stakeholders at the Nyeri Eland Hotel.
“We are sensitizing the County Steering group because previously we had the Ending Drought Emergencies phase 1 which ended in 2022 but we did not achieve our goal .The government therefore prepared a strategy for phase II to end EDE by 2032 .We are sensitizing our community, our county steering group members, civil societies, private sector that they would be able to understand that in Kenya drought will be there but we want to end the emergencies,” he said.
The new working document codenamed Ending Drought Emergencies Common Program Framework (EDE CPF II) has highlighted investments in foundation for ASALs Development and Resilience, Peace Building ,conflict management and security ,climate-proofed infrastructure ,health ,nutrition ,environmental management ,ICT ,Digitization and innovation for resilience as some of its key priority areas.
Overall the program aims to strengthen capacities and systems in drought and early warning, contingency planning, preparedness, response and recovery with an ultimate objective of making Kenya a country resilient to drought risk.
“We want to work together with national and county government, non-state actors and private sectors as well as our development partners as we coordinate issues together and build synergy together in phase II. There are lessons that we learnt in phase I on issues of coordination, buying out, integrating the Council of Governors and now we want to work together to build this strategy together to ensure that we end EDE by 2032,”he stated.
Lekulkal also singled out the ever increasing threat of Nyeri slowly turning out to be the next ASAL County in Kenya with more than 52 percent of its land mass currently being drought prone.
A large part of this area lies in the expansive Kieni sub county that has heavily relied on government interventions for years due to the aridity of the land.
The official has nevertheless said the need for relief assistance has improved for now owing to the heavy rains that were experienced in the country last year and early year reducing the number of families needing relief from 200, 000 to less than 5,000.
Kenya had been battling her worst drought in over four decades prior to last year owing to worsening ecological changes that were blamed on climate change.
In the wake of five failed rainy seasons, close to 2.5 million animals had reportedly died by early 2022 and at least 5 million Kenyans reported to be in urgent need of food relief.
In 2021 the World Food Program (WFP) had estimated that four consecutive failed seasons in the country had resulted in close to 2.4 million livestock deaths, dried-out water sources and sharply reduced harvests.
The number of people in urgent need of food assistance had by then risen five-fold, from 739,000 in August 2020 to 3.5 million in June 2022.
Kieni East and Kieni West constituencies were among areas that were hit hard by drought in Nyeri in 2022 leaving at least 200,000 families fully dependent on relief food.
Other areas that were also affected by the drought included Mathira East and Mathira West.
The government had initially set aside Sh8 billion for the purposes of providing food to affected families and feeds for livestock in drought ravaged areas of Nyeri.
Humanitarian agency World Vision had also injected Sh3.5 billion into the program that was to include rehabilitation of boreholes.
The Government in conjunction with the European Union donated 1,120 bags of animal feed to livestock farmers in Kieni constituency in a bid to boost dairy production in the area.
The feeds were part of 5,040 bags that the NDMA had requisitioned to support the farmers in Kieni East and Kieni West sub-county during the entire drought season.
By Samuel Maina
