“Due to a 3-year drought in Marsabit County, Kenya, our staff are buying truckloads of water and distributing it to far interior villages. They distribute the water in WaterSafe.”
In September 2021, the Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta, declared drought as a national disaster. Unprecedented consecutive rainfall failures and warmer-than-usual temperatures in Northern Kenya have accelerated the depletion of rangeland and water resources and caused an alarming amount of livestock to starve to death. Based on analysis done by ACAPS , a non-profit, non-governmental project that provides international humanitarian analysis, the drought displaced 2.7 million people and killed 13 million livestock.
Access to water is equally challenging for the people of Marsabit. Water availability is mostly on a downward trend across most monitored water points in the region. As the reservoirs dry up, water that mainly comes from the mountains must be rationed between people and livestock. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), some people return home without a drop of water after walking for over 10km to reach the water sources and are forced to restart the whole process the following day.
More than half of the population in Marsabit County was projected to face acute food insecurity as a result of drought conditions. For more than 80% of the population, the main source of livelihood in this county is pastoralism, and depends on livestock and livestock products as their main source of income. Agropastoral communities practice rain-fed farming, increasing the likelihood of major losses during drought as animals like cows, camels, and sheep cannot survive.
Partners for Care, a non-profit organization with operations in Kenya, distributes WaterSafe backpacks to aid the affected villages, easing the burden of carrying the water home from the water source. The people of Marsabit can rely on WaterSafe to safely transport every drop of valuable water for their families.
Read more on the topic:
Scaling up health response to Kenya’s drought-hit populations – World Health Organization
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