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CONTEXT AND METHODOLOGY
The Government of Kenya has committed itself to end drought emergencies in Kenya by the year 2022.
This is clearly spelt out in the Second Medium Term Plan (MTP 2013-2017) for the Kenya Vision 20301 .
However, as the drought continues to prolong, it has become increasingly important to fill information gaps in a systematic and comprehensive manner to inform a more effective humanitarian response and planning for immediate life-saving activities and contingency planning for sustainable solutions.
Samburu County is one of the 47 County governments in Kenya. It has three sub-counties (Samburu East,
Samburu North and Samburu West) and is located in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of Kenya. The primary economic activity is nomadic pastoralism with parts of Samburu practicing agro-pastoralism.
The severe lack of rain across Samburu County since August 2018 has led to a steep decline in access to water, alarming rates of food insecurity and heavy strain on livelihoods3 . According to the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), Samburu County is one of the most affected counties by drought in Kenya.
Existing information on locations and conditions of key primary infrastructure and service delivery in the County for humanitarian planning and intervention is however sparse.
REACH conducted a detailed and up-to-date County-level infrastructure mapping to feed into the Samburu County’s Disaster Risk Management and contingency plans. This information will also enable the County government to better analyse and plan a coordinated humanitarian response to address the needs and barriers to assessing services.
With support from County government departments of Samburu, Agency for Technical Corporation Development (ACTED) and local communities, the first round of data collection took place from 27 November to 21 December 2019 which was followed by another round of data collection that took place from 22 July to 2 August 2020. A total of 1,221 infrastructures in 122 settlements were mapped out in Samburu West Sub County: 306 education facilities, 53 health and nutrition facilities, 13 markets, 455 water points, 27 main bridges, 83 administrative offices, 10 warehouses and 274 financial agents/ banks.
The mapping was done using the Open Data Kit (ODK) tool through smart phones by recording the location and condition of the infrastructure. For all infrastructure targeted, enumerators completed the questionnaire about the physical state of facilities as well as the services offered by each facility. In addition to this, key informants (KIs) at education, health and water sources facilities provided primary data on service provision