15th July, 2011
Drought in the Horn of Africa - AMREF's response
The severe drought affecting parts of Kenya has led to diminished water sources for both human beings and animals.
This has in turn led to decreased pasture, causing deaths of many animals, which are the main source of livelihoods in most of the affected areas.
We will be providing updates from our team on the ground in Kenya on AMREF's response to the drought and what we are doing to support affected communities.
UPDATE 25TH JULY
Current situation
AMREF's activities in parts of Kenya have been severely disrupted as communities’ priorities shift towards the search for water and food rather than access to health care. The most affected areas are Samburu, Kitui, Lamu, Magadi, Turkana, Makueni, Kajiado, Kibera and Dagoretti in Nairobi, and the coastal region. AMREF’s is keen to ensure that the situation in these areas does not deteriorate to emergency crisis level.
A Drought Response Core Team has developed an implementation plan of short- and medium-term interventions. Project staff have already been doing all they can to mitigate the impact of the drought and accompanying health effects.
AMREF's response
AMREF’s response is aimed at mitigating the effects of the drought and famine on the health of affected communities. Using existing structures in programme areas, including Community Health Workers, AMREF will:
- Scale up and diversify outreach services targeting the most vulnerable groups in the community
- Create more water sources such as boreholes and shallow wells
- Distribute food supplements to malnourished children, pregnant women and people living with HIV
- Create temporary community therapeutic centres for children under five and pregnant women
- Develop water and supplementary feeding programmes for school children.
In the refugee camps in Daadab and Kakuma, AMREF will focus on targetting the most vulnerable - women and children. Most of those flocking from Somalia to the Daadab camp, and spilling over into Kakuma, are women with severely malnourished children in need of emergency food and medical care.
The impact of the drought
- Since the drought has caused a huge lack of water and pasture, insecurity has increased due to drought related-conflict, and inter-tribal conflict related to cattle rustling in order to restock.
- Health facility records also show an upsurge in water, sanitation and hygiene related diseases like diarrhoea. There is intense environmental degradation related to over grazing, charcoal burning and migration to dry season watering points.
- Drying up of water sources: reduced water level in shallow wells and boreholes, forcing communities to dig deeper and as a result, possibly contaminating the only available water.
- Massive influx of children into the schools that are benefitting from AMREF programmes and receiving food rations from the Government, resulting in disruption of learning, congestion, poor sanitation and hygiene, and thus reversing some of the health gains already obtained.