Alert
Kenya - No. 4/2009
Famine Alert in Kenya
Geneva, 20 January 2009
Ten million people risk going hungry in Kenya after harvests failed because of drought, the government said on Friday, 8th January 2009. The government declared a national emergency and lifted the import duty on maize until the next major harvest, which will not be for a year in many parts of Kenya.
President Kibaki declared the food shortage a national emergency allowing international aid agencies and governments to step in and help. The emergency declaration allows the government to divert money from development projects to food aid and to use disaster funds that are held in reserve, said government spokesman Alfred Mutua. "It also opens ways for intervention from others," said Mutua. "Our disaster emergency fund is getting depleted."
Kenya's finances are under strain because of the cost of sheltering and reintegrating 600,000 people displaced by violence following the elections in December 2007. More than 1,000 people were killed and many farmers were too frightened to return home and plant crops.
In Kenya, ACT International members and partners have an active local forum which meets monthly to share information and discuss humanitarian issues related to Kenya. The current active ACT Kenya Forum (AKF) members include: the Anglican Church of Kenya (ACK), National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCCK), Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church (KELC), Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kenya (ELCK), the Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA), Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe (DKH), Dan Church Aid (DCA), Christian Aid (CAid), Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Lutheran World Relief (LWR) and Church World Service (CWS).
The AKF members based in country have been responding to humanitarian emergencies together over the past few years and also recently in 2008, responding to the needs of the families displaced by violence caused by the disputed presidential elections of December, 2007.
AFK members have been monitoring the drought situation since late last year and are now planning to respond. The AKF members held an Emergency meeting on the 15th, of January 2009 and agreed that there is an urgent need to consolidate the available data in preparation for an ACT Appeal. The members are meeting again on Tuesday 20th January, 2009 to review the consolidated data which will then be used to generate an ACT Appeal for Kenya. Meanwhile some ACT members are conducting rapid assessments in Lower Eastern Districts which are some of the most hit areas by drought in the country.
The government plans to distribute food in drought affected areas and to the poor in urban areas. It also plans to distribute free and subsidized fertilizer, seeds and farm equipment. The U.N.'s World Food Program is already feeding 1.2 million people in Kenya, said spokesman Peter Smerdon. "We do expect the numbers in need to increase significantly," he said. The last state of emergency declared because of hunger was more than four years ago.The full impact of post election violence on the country's food security has now emerged, especially as areas which have traditionally had food surplus now need relief supply.
In addition to the famine prone regions of North Eastern, Turkana, upper and lower Eastern and Coastal regions, areas of Laikipia, Nandi, Uasin Gishu and Trans Nzoia and parts of Central Province which have always produced food for sale to the rest of the country did not produce enough this time round and many families in most of these areas are in urgent need for relief food assistance.
These are some of the areas which were worst affected by last year's post election violence. During the chaos, food was burnt on the farms and most farmers did not plant for fear of being attacked. More than 600,000 people, most of them farmers, are estimated to have been displaced. As a result of the chaos, thousands of acres of lands vacated by the displaced persons were never ploughed as their owners sought refuge in various camps in the country. This, together with the fact that fertilizer prices were high last year, bad weather patterns and the fact that some areas experienced inadequate rains, have been blamed for the food shortage.
Statistics from the Uasin Gishu agricultural district office show that the area under maize in the district fell by about 20,000 acres from last year as a result of the displacement. More significantly, farmers that were once very productive are now finding it hard to make ends meet with many living in squalid conditions in camps for internally displaced persons.
AKF have appointed a task force amongst the ACT Forum to begin consolidating the various assessment reports, in order to review the analysis in its meeting on the 20th January 2009. There after ACT International members will consider whether to submit an ACT Appeal to the alliance for responding to the most affected areas.
Any funding indication or pledge should be communicated to Jessie Kgoroeadira, ACT Finance Officer (jkg@act-intl.org).
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ACT is a global alliance of churches and related agencies working to save lives and support communities in emergencies worldwide.
The ACT Coordinating Office is based with the World Council of Churches (WCC) and The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Switzerland.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
A man pushes a wheelbarrow containing relief food from a distribution centre in Chirumanzi, 250 km (155 miles) southeast of Harare, January 15, 2009. An estimated five million Zimbabweans, about 40 ...
