Feature story
Now, the groups are moving again or at least preparing to respond as a severe drought – the worst in 40 years - unfolds in the East and Horn of Africa. Here, three successive rain seasons have failed. Scientists and relief agencies are blaming climate change for bringing droughts in a region battered by conflicts and more recently – the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
For example, in Garissa, a semi-arid county in Kenya’s north-east, church officials point at food shortages, mass death of livestock and the difficulties in finding water to highlight the severe drought.
“The people need support and we are walking with them in fighting the drought. We are preparing a response from different fronts which we hope to broaden in the coming days,” Anglican Bishop David Mutisya of Garissa Diocese said in an interview.
A Finn Church Aid assessment in the area revealed that some of the main water sources- rivers, boreholes, water pan and shallow wells – did not have enough water for people and livestock. The people were walking for seven kilometres to collect water while one million heads of livestock had died in the county, according to the assessment.
The organization- a member of global ACT Alliance network for Christian organization- is running a cash transfer program in Kenya and Somalia. The focus is children or pregnant or lactating mothers headed households. The funds are made to help the families until the arrival of the rain season.
“This is another man made crisis, just like Ukraine, except that the cause of the drought is climate change,” Jounl Hemberg, the Executive Director, FCA said in a news release. “Those who remember the famine in Ethiopia are haunted by it. This is a similar event across a larger scale, but we have means to prevent the suffering that 80’s famine caused.”
An estimated 15.5 – 16 million people are in urgent need of food assistance in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya, according to the Intergovernmental Government Authority on Development (IGAD), a bloc of eight countries in east and the horn of Africa. Of these, 6 to 6.5 million are in Ethiopia, 3.5 in Kenya and 6 million in Somalia. It is also anticipated that floods and insecurity in South Sudan will push another 8 million people into acute food insecurity. In the IGAD region, 29 million are facing high food insecurity.
“We have to act now on the basis of a “no regret” approach,” Dr. Workneh Gebeyehu, the executive secretary of IGAD told a news conference on 11 April.
The official called for upscaling of livelihood programs to protect the lives and livelihoods of farmers, agro-pastoralists, and pastoralists.
“This will help support their recovery and self-reliance in the immediate and medium term,” he said.
Meanwhile, as he leads efforts to support the drought stricken communities, Mutisya says the motto, “better teach how to fish than to give fish” is ever alive.
“Most of the time, we build the capacity of the communities. We train them on how they can face the challenges,” said Mutisya. “We train on farming, provide facilities, build or buy water tanks or drill boreholes to make water available.”
According to the bishop, benefiting women groups in the diocese are now able to grow their own food and get a surplus to sell. They are also telling the others and transferring the knowledge.