Over 80% of Kenya’s terrain is classed as arid and semi-arid land (ASAL) due to low annual rainfall. About 39% of the country’s population who live in ASALs are engaged in pastoralism or agro-pastoralism as their main means of livelihood. ASAL communities have for many years relied on humanitarian aid or government and donors to fund their livelihood projects or cushion them from recurrent shocks such as droughts. Without this funding, several programs will struggle with sustainability in the long run because the shocks are now often more severe and occur in shorter cycles owing to the effects of climate change.
In an exclusive interview with DevelopmentAid, Alex Mwaura, the Country Director of Food for the Hungry (FH) in Kenya, discusses how partners can work with ASAL communities to build resilience capacity to deal with recurrent shocks. In Kenya, FH designs, develops, and delivers catalytic solutions in Marsabit, Samburu East and Meru North impacting about 238,000 people and placing them on a pathway to become resilient and to flourish.
DevelopmentAid: What approaches does FH adopt when working in the ASALs?
Alex Mwaura: Many years ago, we started off with humanitarian work, and that has evolved over time to more long-term development programs. But the reality is that with the nature of ASALs, we are always moving between humanitarian and development activities. This is why we believe taking a resilience approach to our programming is key to ensuring that communities can anticipate and absorb shocks, adapt to them, and develop transformative resilience capacities to climatic shocks.
We are seeing with the weather patterns and the recently ended drought that gripped the Horn of Africa that the gains we make in development can be easily eroded with one shock. We, therefore, take time to diagnose the systemic issues, hand in hand, with communities and county governments and thereafter collectively design solutions to strengthen systems as a pathway to build resilience. For example, when thinking of a food system and trying to make it healthier, visible and invisible forces such as culture, infrastructure, conflict, markets and so on may all be at play. The solution may not necessarily lie in the provision of food, but greater and more sustainable gains may lie in addressing some of these other factors that influence the food system.
So, we believe that addressing the deeper causes lays the foundation to designing solutions that strengthen the systems and, in turn, build resilience.
DevelopmentAid: What typical challenges plague ASAL communities where FH works?
Alex Mwaura: The ASAL regions in Kenya have huge potential. Close to 70% of the livestock herd comes from these areas. They also host the bulk of Kenya’s wildlife and equally have a young energetic population. However, there are some key challenges that hamper development. As in many other parts of the country, these challenges are complex and interconnected.
Access to healthcare is a challenge in terms of the physical facilities and the availability of healthcare workers. Many ASAL counties are so vast and sparsely populated with villages and communities spread far apart. It then becomes difficult to access health facilities and you find mobile clinics are sometimes required to screen for acute malnutrition and treat minor ailments.
Access to safe water is another critical issue in the ASALs with few household connections to water and a heavy reliance on groundwater options such as boreholes and shallow wells. When the rains set in, many resort to using surface water and this comes with its risks due to the contamination of water sources which in turn increases the disease burden in an already stretched healthcare system.
Another key issue is low access to clean cooking fuel. Many households still use firewood, and this has a negative impact on health (through upper-respiratory tract infections) and the environment due to the cutting down of trees.
But with all these challenges, there are several opportunities to co-create lasting solutions in the Kenya drylands and it will take intent and partnerships that are complementary in nature.
DevelopmentAid: How does FH address the healthcare challenges common in ASALs?
Alex Mwaura: We work with community health promoters because they are on the front line in the community health system. One way we do this is through strengthening their capacity in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MoH) so that they can, for example, train communities on good sanitation and hygiene practices, and also educate on solutions for the treatment of water and act as a key point in health promotion and enabling referrals.
FH also improves hygiene and sanitation outcomes through latrine coverage, especially in schools. Taking a preventative approach to healthcare is imperative, especially for areas with low access to healthcare facilities and services.
Working closely with the MoH at the county level, FH provides logistical and technical support for key surveys that monitor nutrition and food security status, and these help us and our partners to focus on designing the necessary solutions to tackle the humanitarian and development challenges.
DevelopmentAid: How does FH work with ASALs communities to improve food security and nutrition?
Alex Mwaura: FH utilizes a system thinking approach to diagnose issues in the agriculture value chain with the aim of strengthening food and economic systems which we believe will improve food security outcomes. We also work with farmer groups to advance agroecology practices, one of the proven approaches to sustainable agriculture. This involves building healthy soils, improving the farm ecosystem, selecting suitable crops, introducing water harvesting techniques, and taking things a step further by enlisting children (through the 4K school clubs) to buy in and adopt these principles early in their lives. We’ve seen this have a positive impact on the provision of nutritious food in schools and an increase in the retention of children in schools, even at the peak of droughts.
DevelopmentAid: How are these ASALs farming households cushioned when rains fail?
Alex Mwaura: We encourage communities to harvest rainwater at the household level using low-cost technologies that help them to grow food in the drier months. Beyond harvesting rainwater, improving the management of water systems is critical to building water security in the long run. So, FH places emphasis on the governance of water points but also deploying techniques such as integrated water resource management in selected areas.
We typically don’t drill boreholes, but we repair and rehabilitate boreholes and shallow wells. Working with the county water department, FH identifies water systems that require interventions and, as mentioned, we think of the long-term functionality of the system. We do this through cleaner abstraction methods using solar power, strengthening revenue collection using water ATMs and borehole sensors for monitoring uptime, downtime, and pumping hours. We’ve seen these strategies enable good management of water systems and contribute to resilience building by ensuring there is water available even in the drier seasons.
DevelopmentAid: How does FH help to build resilience for pastoralists and minimize livestock losses that happen when droughts occur and animals start to die?
Alex Mwaura: As mentioned, livestock is the primary asset in most ASAL regions. FH partners with communities and county leadership to improve the management of rangelands and the water resources therein. We also engage in dialogue and conversations to minimize barriers to using markets in good time. The earlier people use markets to commercially sell their livestock, the better.
Slaughter destocking in the middle of a drought does help but the returns are minimal. What if one sold a portion of the herd that they cannot feed and retained a breeding stock, won’t the loss during drought be minimized? I think it would. But these ideas involve a lot of dialogue with the community to help to develop an appreciation of the value of selling their animals ahead of time – before drought strikes.
DevelopmentAid: How does FH support the ASALs communities to increase their income and what has been the impact?
Alex Mwaura: In addition to creating healthier markets, food and water systems, we have also formed over 200 savings groups that have helped people who never had incomes begin to save and start small businesses. These groups have become catalytic change agents of household and community transformation.
Beyond the savings, the small businesses expand opportunities and the groups even develop into the management of community assets such as water points showing that they are trusted by the wider community.
Moreover, from a resilience standpoint, our approach to forming and supporting savings groups creates strong social bonds which are a known resilience building block. At a supply level, through our engagements with economic systems, we work to incentivize private sector engagement in the ASALs slowly but surely tipping the narrative that ASALs can only survive through donations but can also be viable for business.
Alex Mwaura, Food for the Hungry Kenya’s Country Director, has worked in the humanitarian and development sector for over 20 years, 14 of which have been with Food for the Hungry. Alex is passionate about building highly functional and results-driven teams that design, develop, and deliver impactful solutions so that children, families, and communities can be resilient and flourish.
