Highlights
• The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) July 2022 LRA report revised the food insecure population to 3.5 million (24% of population) from the previous 3.1 million (Feb 2022 SRA). However, the drought impact projections remain negative due to expected reduced overall harvests that are highly likely to increase the number of food insecure population in October 2022.
• 10,231 children (5,161 girls and 5,070 boys) were admitted for treatment of severe acute malnutrition and 179,268 caregivers, families and community members were reached with nutrition messages in reporting period in the target counties.
• 80,678 people (38,326 men, 39,892 women, 1,205 boys and 1,255 girls) were reached with safe water through the rehabilitation of 20 non-functional boreholes
• 43,488 people (9,211 Girls, 8,789 Boys, 9,181 Men and 16,307 Women) provided with critical life-saving integrated outreach services linked to targeted and supported health facilities.
• 11,421 OOSC children (5,334 girls and 6,087 boys) reached in July with education interventions including supplies (school bags, education bag kits, disability kits) increasing UNICEF’s education cumulative reach to 27,147 (12,057 girls and 15,090 boys or 15.4 per cent of target) since April 2022.
• UNICEF’s funding requirements to respond to life-saving services in health, nutrition,
WASH, protection, and education needs of drought affected people over the period April – December 2022 remains at US$ 67.8 million with funding gap of US$ 42.4 million or 63 per cent compared with 67 per cent in June Sitrep.
• The overall results achieved by KCO are also due to office’s decision to repurpose about US$ 5.6 million of its existing resources to support drought response.
Situation Overview & Humanitarian Needs
Kenya has continued to face a severe drought due to the cumulative impacts of four consecutive failed rainy seasons with all Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) counties having received below average rainfall. From the 1 st March to 20th May 2020, the seasonal cumulative rainfall is overall less than 85 percent of the 1981-2010 average across much of Kenya. Consequently, over 4.1 million people were estimated to be facing food insecurity in Kenya by June 2022, up from 3.5 million people in May 2022 and 3.1 million in December 2021(NDMA, LRA August 2022). There is also a strong probability of a fifth consecutive below-average rainy season during the October-December 2022 short rains and NDMA, based on the Long Rains Assessment (August 2020) projects that by October 2022, the number of food insecure population will move to 4.35 million people.
The SMART surveys conducted in June/July 2022, show that the nutrition situation has significantly deteriorated with almost 1 in every 2.4 children suffer from malnutrition in Turkana South. The deteriorating nutrition situation is mainly attributed to worsening food insecurity characterized by low milk availability, unfavourable terms of trade, increasing food prices and water stress which is expected to continue during the dry weather in the projection period.
Milk production trends in 2022 are significantly below the Long-Term Average and since the start of the year has been zero in Turkana, as shown below. This is a key driver of malnutrition.
Drought-related disease outbreaks of Kalaazar, Chikungunya, Dengue fever and Yellow fever have been reported during the reporting period. The Yellow Fever outbreak is still confined to Isiolo and Garissa Counties, with 123 cases, 3 case confirmed, and 11 deaths. There is an observed decline in new cases, with 6 suspected new cases reported during the last 1 week of July. This has complicated the drought response due to the stretch on available community health workers.
According to NDMA monthly bulletin for August 2022 regarding household access to water, 17 out of 23 ASAL counties reported above long time average (LTA) distances and only 3 counties of Wajir, Kilifi and Kitui are at LTA. In comparison with the previous month, there is a general increasing trend in distance from households to water sources. Most counties did not show any substantial improvement in trends. Water access directly correlates with the distances trekked by livestock for water and pasture access where the situation improved in only 4 out of 23 counties and remained stable in 6 counties and worsened in 13 counties. As the drought crisis deepens, water sources are expected to last for less than a month in pastoral areas of Mandera, Marsabit, Turkana and Isiolo. In most of the counties affected by drought, mechanized and non-mechanized water sources become non-functional due to the draw down on the water tables, pumping system failures and faults in the infrastructure. The on-going data collection exercise by UNICEF and county government water departments in July 2022, identified a total of 720 non-functional boreholes which is about 17% of total number of boreholes in target counties and this number is expected to continuously vary with further data from the field being received. In total, 180 are in Priority 1 counties (Turkana, Marsabit, Mandera, Wajir and Garissa) and 540 are in Priority 2 counties (Isiolo, Tana River, Laikipia, Samburu, Baringo, West Pokot, Kajiado and Kitui). The rehabilitation of these boreholes will provide access to safe water to about 2 million people and to their livestock.
A total of 559,282 refugees and asylum seekers continue to live in Kenya, 53.4% of whom are from Somalia, 25.1% from South Sudan, 8.9% from Congo and 5.6% from Ethiopia and the remaining are from other nationalities. Out of this 42% each live in Kakuma/Kalobeyei and Dadaab respectively and 16% in urban settlements. Continuing instability and drought in the HoA region may lead to more inflows of people into Kenya further requiring additional resources to respond to multiple emergencies such as COVID19, drought, communal conflict flued by competition over resources, diseases outbreaks such as measles and yellow fever.
Source: UN Children’s Fund