The National Drought Management Authority will this month release Sh559 million as cash transfer residents of four counties ravaged by the prolonged dry spell.
NDMA chief executive officer James Oduor said about 100,000 families in Turkana, Marsabit, Wajir and Mandera will benefit under the hunger safety programme implemented by the authority. He spoke to the Star on Monday.
“The cash transfer will be released on August 16 with priority being given to those counties that are the most affected by drought. The programme will expand to other counties like Isiolo, Garissa, Tana River and Samburu due to vagaries of climate change and continued drought,” he said.
Oduor added that the government has for the last one month been undertaking food security assessment to ascertain the food security situation in 23 ASAL counties and the report is set to be released this week.
The National Drought Early Warning Bulletin indicated last month that 12 counties namely Marsabit, Mandera, Garissa, Wajir, Kilifi, Tana River, Lamu, Samburu, Kitui, Lamu, Isiolo and Laikipia were in the alert drought phase.
“11 counties reported normal drought phase as at July. During the month under review, 14 counties reported worsening trend, eight counties recorded stable trend while one county reported an improvement. The worsening trend across most of ASAL counties is as a result of the poor rains received during the March April May 2021 long rains season,” the bulletin stated.
The 11 counties include Baringo, Embu, Narok, Taita Taveta, Tharaka Nithi, West Pokot, Turkana, Kajiado, Meru, Nyeri and Kwale.
The 14 counties with worsening trend are Meru, Nyeri, Kwale, Garissa, Isiolo, Kilifi, Laikipia, Makueni, Mandera, Samburu, Tana River, Wajir and Marsabit.
The Early Warning bulletin further revealed in nearly all the counties, livestock production indicators are currently fair and on declining trend as compared to the normal period.
“The condition is as a result of decline in pasture availability, both in terms of quantity and quality, and increase in distances covered by livestock in search of pasture and water due to drying open water sources,” the NDMA report said.
The NDMA report indicated that the state of pasture and browse in most of the arid and semi-arid counties was generally fair to poor condition with Isiolo, Garissa, Wajir, Tana River, Laikipia and Kitui reporting poor pasture condition.
“The current pasture and browse condition is on worsening trend as compared to the previous month due to the poor performance of the 2021 long rains season,” the Early Warning bulletin showed.
