Old people facing bleak days in drought-hit areas

The National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC), a state commission, said although old people suffer the most, there is no data to guide government response.

“In the context of the drought currently facing 13 counties, the commission calls upon state and non-state actors to enhance the resilience of older persons including women and protect them from devastating impact,” NGEC chairperson Dr Joyce Mutinda said.

She said the state must continuously collect age disaggregated data to accurately measure the impact of drought on older persons and to inform future drought recovery mechanisms.

“We further recommend that all actors ensure issues of older women are more visible, planned for and budgeted for,” she said.

HelpAge, a local non-profit, said although elderly people have special dietary needs, the current relief food comprises only maize and cooking fat.

At least 4 million Kenyans are currently relying on relief food. Four per cent of those are believed to be above 70 years.

Last week, the National Drought Management Authority said the situation is worsening across 20 of the 23 arid and semi-arid counties.

“The drought situation in Laikipia, Tana River and Tharaka Nithi counties has progressed to the alarm phase," NDMA said in its early warning bulletin.

"The three counties have joined Isiolo, Mandera, Garissa, Turkana, Wajir, Samburu, and Marsabit, bringing the number of counties in the alarm phase to 10."

The number of those in need of humanitarian assistance is projected to increase to 4.35 million this month of October from the current 4.1 million.

The drought bulletin attributed the continued drought to the failure of four consecutive seasons with the forecast for the October-November-December short rains seasons predicting the likelihood of the fifth season underperforming.

According to the UN, Kenya is among 19 hunger hotspot countries where the food crisis has worsened.

Up to 26 million people are expected to face a crisis or worse levels of food insecurity in Somalia, Southern and Eastern Ethiopia, and Northern and Eastern Kenya.

This is according to an early warning outlook joint UN report for October 2022 to January 2023 released on Thursday.

The report was issued by the Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Programme.

FAO director general QU Dongyu said severe drought in the Horn of Africa has pushed people to the brink of starvation, destroying crops and killing livestock on which their survival depends.

“Acute food insecurity is rising fast and spreading across the world. People in the poorest countries in particular who have yet to recover from the impact of Covid-19 are suffering due to high food prices and fertiliser supplies and the climate emergency,” Dongyu said.

“Without a massively scaled-up humanitarian response that has at its core time-sensitive and life-saving agricultural assistance, the situation will likely worsen in many countries in the coming months.”

WFP executive director David Beasley said this was the third time in 10 years that Somalia has been threatened with a devastating famine.

(Edited by Tabnacha O)