Livestock have perished in the current drought in Northern Kenya Following the poor 2014 short rains, the food security situation of households has declined substantially in parts of the four counties reached by HSNP. In response, NDMA intends to make an emergency cash transfer to 90,648 affected HSNP households across the four Counties of Turkana, Wajir, Marsabit and Wajir on 15th April 2015. Further, the current routine households with activated accounts (75,094HHs) will receive their next payment on 5th May 2015. Thus the emergency and regular payment will reach a total of 165,742 households (approx. 994,452 people).The emergency payments amount to Kshs. 416,710,700.
NDMA has adopted clear protocol which define the transfer amounts and coverage and this will form part of the revised National Drought Response Operations Manual, and are a key component of National Safety Net Programme (NSNP) Programme for Results (P4R).
NDMA measures drought status using the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI), derived from remote sensed satellite data. NDMA classifies drought status as: Moderate; Severe; and Extreme. In January 2015 (table 1), 7 Sub-counties in the 4 HSNP Counties had reached “Severe” drought status with 1 Sub-County (Eldas) in Wajir County reaching “Extreme”. In February, the situation worsened, with 10 sub-Counties reaching ‘Severe’ drought status and 2 in “Extreme” (Eldas, Wajir and Moyale, Marsabit). In March the report shows a further decline in household food security status with 5 sub-Counties are under “Severe” and 11 under “Extreme”.
Moyale sub-County is the hardest hit with VCI of 2.26, the lowest it has ever been in a span of 10 years. Overall, the hardest hit County is Wajir, followed by Mandera, Marsabit and Turkana. Turkana North is the only sub-County in Turkana under “Severe”.
Read more on how HSNP plans to deliver Emergency payments in the below link.
http://www.hsnp.or.ke/index.php/our-work/scale-up