The Kenya National Disaster Operation Centre

Kenya’s landscape covers a total of 583 000 sq. km and is grouped into geographical zones including; the Savannah Lands covering most of the arid and semi- arid areas, the Coastal Margin, the Rift Valley, the Highlands and the Lake Victoria Basin. With a growth rate of 3.1% the population stands at approximately 29 million people. The country’s GNP/Capita is close to US$330. By the year 2010 and with a slow decline, the population is expected to reach a high of 39.3 million, 37.4 million with the medium decline and 35.5 million with a fast decline. The population is predominantly rural and relies on agricultural or other related activities for daily income although only 17% of the country’s territory is arable.

The next 15 or 20 years are likely to see a rapid reduction in the rate of growth of Kenya’s population. Having been close to 4% per annum in the 1970’s (when it was widely claimed to be the highest in the world), by the year 2010 it will be less than 2% and possibly under 1% if fertility falls as rapidly as envisaged in the “fast fertility decline” projections.

Agriculture supports up to 75%13 of the Kenyan population including those who reside and work in urban centres, accounts for approximately one third of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), employs more than two thirds of the labour force and about 70% of the export earnings. It generates almost all the country’s food requirements and provides a significant proportion of raw materials for the agro-based industries. Overall, the smallholder sub-sector contributes about 75% of the country’s total value of agricultural output, 55% of the marketed agricultural output and just over 85% of total employment within agricultural sector. For this reason, it has a major role in the economy and consequently on the design of poverty eradication programmes.

Declining economic growth in general, coupled with a high population growth have lowered living standards and left sizeable numbers of the population poor and vulnerable to both natural and man made disasters. The country’s geographical set up has also contributed much to regular if not permanent hazards in some areas. When these disasters interact with vulnerable communities they cause suffering of varying magnitudes. This has affected the economic development effectively lowering the human development of these areas.

Almost 70 % of Kenya’s land mass is affected by drought. This covers most parts of Rift Valley, North Eastern, Eastern provinces and coast province therefore classified as arid and semi-arid land. The country covers a total area of 582, 644 sq kilometers of which less than 3% of the total is forest. 75% of Kenya’s population earns its living from agriculture which in turn depends on rainfall. Due to the vast areas prone to drought, Kenya’s vulnerability to food insecurity is highest among the pastoralists and small-scale agriculturalists in the arid and semi-arid lands (ASALs) of the country. Extreme weather and climate events influence the entire economy, which depends mostly on agricultural products like cash crops, food crops and animals.

Arid and semi arid lands carry 30 % of the country’s total human population yet they are characterized by uncertainty of rainfall, high evapo-transpiration rates, low organic matter levels and poor infrastructure.

Kenya experiences drought on a cyclic basis. The major ones coming every ten years and the minor ones happen almost every three to four years. The 2004 drought is a replica of the previous cycle of severe droughts that affect the country every decade as experienced in 1974, 1984 and 1994.

Kenya has in the past recorded deficits of food due to drought resulting from a shortfall in rainfall in 1928, 1933-34, 1937, 1939, 1942-44, 1947, 1951, 1952-55, 1957-58, 1984-85, and 1999-2000. The 1983-84 drought and the 1999-2000 ones are recorded as the most severe resulting in loss of human life and livestock, heavy government expenditure to facilitate response and general high economic losses of unprecedented levels. After the El Nino induced rains of 1997 and 1998 Kenya experienced prolonged drought in many areas leading to famine and starvation15.

There are two rainy seasons in Kenya, the long rains in April to May and the short ones in October to November. The extreme climate and weather conditions are associated with anomalies in the general circulations of the seasonal northward and southward movement of the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).