Kenya Drought Response Plan, January - December 2023 (Issued January 2023)

Overview of the Situation

Kenya has experienced five consecutive below-average rainy seasons, causing the longest and most severe drought in recent history and driving rapidly rising humanitarian needs across the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) region. An estimated 6.4 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2023, including about 602,000 refugees, representing a 35 per cent increase compared to 2022. This is the highest number of people in need recorded in Kenya in at least the last 10 years. According to the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) analysis, the impact of the drought on food and income is driving crisis (IPC 3) outcomes across the pastoral areas and driving emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes across the ASAL region. There is a 10 per cent year-end rise in people currently facing acute food insecurity (IPC Phase 3 or 4) in 23 ASAL counties, totalling 3.5 million people.

In pastoral areas, herders have suffered widespread losses, with a recorded 2.6 million livestock deaths attributed to the drought.

Pastoral households continue to face precipitous declines in milk availability and livestock-related sources of food, including due to migration of livestock far away from typical grazing areas and homesteads. As a result, milk consumption among women, children, and the elderly has decreased dramatically, with grave consequences for nutrition. Over 677,900 children and more than 138,800 pregnant and breastfeeding women in the ASAL region are expected to face acute malnutrition in 2023, according to the latest Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) analysis.

In agro-pastoral areas, well-below-average rainfall has limited land preparation and planting, resulting in minimal harvests. In turn, this has decreased income, resulting in farmers not being able to invest in future seed purchases, as well as below-average agricultural labour opportunities. Sharp declines in purchasing power are creating large food consumption gaps and high levels of acute malnutrition among millions of households in these areas. Households are increasingly reliant on off-own farm activities, such as petty trade, to earn income and minimize food consumption gaps.

At the same time, staple food prices have risen across Kenya because of below-average production combined with increased fuel prices and reduced cross-border imports from Uganda and Tanzania. Market prices for staple commodities such as maize and beans were 60-90 per cent more expensive than the five-year average in February 2023, according to the Short Rains Assessment 2022. Where they are available, households are purchasing cheaper and less-preferred alternatives like cowpeas, pigeon peas, green grams, sorghum, millet, and non-milled maize and rice.

As a result, acute food insecurity has risen to its highest levels in at least a decade, with 5.4 million people in the ASAL region of Kenya projected to face Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or Emergency (IPC Phase 4) by March 2023, according to the IPC analysis. With the response unable to keep pace with the needs due to underfunding, Turkana, Mandera, Marsabit and Wajir counties are expected to shift from Crisis (IPC Phase 3) to Emergency (IPC Phase 4) by March 2023, while Kajiado, Laikipia and Nyeri will move into Crisis (IPC Phase 3).

The drought has taken a devastating toll on communities’ access to water: almost 95 per cent of water pans dried up in 2022. People are now having to trek between 8.6 and 17.6 kilometres to access water, at least 38 per cent above the three-year average, according to the National Drought Management Agency. This forces women and girls to travel longer distances to access water, placing them at heightened risk of gender-based violence. Agro-pastoral livelihood zones is well below normal levels, resulting in low yields for boreholes and shallow wells, leaving people and the livestock that they depend on for their livelihood without access to clean and adequate water. The absence of adequate water has specific consequences for women and girls of childbearing age, whose menstrual hygiene needs are often deprioritized when families do not even have enough water for cooking and drinking.

The water crisis has also caused children to drop out of school, heightened the risk of maternal mortality and increased the prevalence of communicable diseases. Due to the lack of water at schools and the burden placed on children to fetch water, school dropout rates have soared across all ASAL counties. In some instances, healthcare facilities have asked pregnant women to bring their own water for giving birth at the facility and there are reports of increased deaths during delivery due to lack of access to clean water . The reduction in water quantity and quality is also contributing to the spread of waterborne disease outbreaks. Diseases such as cholera are rapidly spreading in the water scarce counties, especially Garissa, where there is a large influx of refugees from Ethiopia and Somalia.
At the same time, people’s access to healthcare has significantly diminished, including due to the vast distances they are now having to travel to access food, water and forage for their livestock.

Many women have sacrificed their own well-being and nutrition to care for their families during the drought, while the drought has further entrenched gender roles, with increased burdens and risk of gender-based violence, according to rapid assessment of the gendered impacts of drought on households living in the ASALs. Faced with impossible choices, women have foregone their own needs—including for menstrual hygiene and reproductive healthcare—and have often prioritized their family receiving meals, over themselves. Some women and girls have also resorted to transactional sex to help their families survive the drought. Girls have been pulled out of school for early marriage, and families have been separated as men and boys seek forage and food for livestock. Older people—especially in pastoralist communities—are also facing unique consequences due to the drought. Their role in caring for children has increased, as younger and more able-bodied adults have travelled further afield in search of forage and food or migrated to urban areas in search of work.

The drought has exacerbated inter-communal violence, with incidences of insecurity and resource-based conflicts persisting across the ASAL region. Resource-based conflicts were reported in most ASAL counties, instigated by competition for scarce pasture and water resources coupled with long-standing rivalries between communities and resulting in injuries, loss of lives and stock thefts.

In the ASAL region, there are growing reports of people fleeing their rural homes and arriving into urban and peri-urban areas— including the sides of major roads—in search of new livelihoods and assistance. In Garissa County alone, 77 per cent of settlements reported arrivals of people from other settlements in search of goods and services to cope with the drought, amounting to over 205,000 people, according to IOM DTM’s report on human mobility.

Meanwhile, an estimated 45,000 asylum seekers arrived in Kenya from neighbouring Somalia in 2022, according to UNHCR. In 2022, UNHCR conducted a profiling exercise for mainly Somali new arrivals in Dadaab refugee camp during which 46 per cent of those interviewed cited the drought as one of the reasons for their flight.

In Kakuma, almost 20 per cent of new arrivals cited food insecurity, hunger, and drought as the reasons for a flight from their countries of origin.