The Kenya National Disaster Operation Centre

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).