Attachments
Key Messages
• UNHCR Kenya has faced an expanding refugee population, growing by over 70% from about 500,000 people in 2020 to over 800,000 by 2025. The majority of refugees continue to reside in large camps and settlements in rural Garissa and Turkana Counties, with roughly half hosted in Garissa (Dadaab) and over one-third in Turkana (Kakuma/Kalobeyei). At the same time, a severe humanitarian financing crisis—combined with recurrent drought and economic pressures—is contributing to worsening malnutrition among refugee children in Turkana County.
• UNHCR and the World Bank Group as part of a broader collaboration under the Kenyan Analytical Program on Forced Displacement conducted a survey in February-March 2025 to assess the nutritional status and immunization coverage of children aged 6–59 months across both refugee and host communities living in Turkana County and urban Nairobi.
• Nutrition measures for refugee children living in camps in Northwestern Kenya are significantly worse than for refugee children living in urban Nairobi, with differentiated results by nutrition measure compared to surrounding hosts. While these disparities align with evidence on the constraints imposed by encampment, they may also reflect selection: relatively better‑off refugees tend to move to urban areas such as Nairobi, whereas poorer and more vulnerable households remain in camps. Among refugees, outcomes for urban refugee children appear relatively better across nutrition indicators, children in the Kalobeyei settlement are the most affected, and children in Kakuma are also ranked as being in a “serious” situation for acute malnutrition.