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Introduction to Disasters in Kenya

The draft management policy for disaster management in Kenya defines disaster as a serious disruption of the functioning of a community or society causing extensive human, material and or environmental damage that is beyond the affected community to cope with given the resources in place. A hazard, on the other hand, is defined as a dangerous phenomenon, substance, human activity that may cause a disaster (GOK, 2009). Nabutola (2004) defines risk as to the possibility of incurring a loss. Disasters and hazards can be natural or anthropogenic (Nabutola, 2004). Ministry of State for Special Program name disasters to include droughts, fires, terrorism, floods, technological accidents, diseases and epidemics that control people’s livelihoods, destroy infrastructure and divert the planned use of resources in the profile of disasters common to Kenya. Climate change is also being recognized as a potential hazard.

The major natural disaster experienced by Kenya is probably drought. Floods also occur but are mainly restricted to regions. Other disasters that have occurred in the since 2006 include fire, diseases and food poisoning (GOK, 2006). Silvica evaluates the effectiveness of the Kenyan government in dealing with the disasters especially drought, floods, and fire. We will first describe the nature of the mentioned disasters in Kenya, assess government reactions before concluding with the main points.

Droughts and famines

The definition of drought can be meteorological in terms of changes in precipitation over time, hydrological in terms of deficiencies in water reserves or agricultural in terms of soil moisture for a particular crop (NASA, 2011). Drought in Kenya causes food shortages as it has direct impacts on agriculture in which more than 80% of the population relies on and as such drought has also a significant economic effect on the country.

Droughts hit Kenya in 2005 countrywide. The most affected region was the northern parts of the country. According to Wakabi (2006), the drought killed 40% of cows, 27% of sheep and 17% of goats as a result of inadequate water and pasture. At the time, the drought was considered the worst in a decade. In 2009, a severe drought hit many parts of the country affecting close to 4 million Kenyans (BBC, 2009). Another drought hit the country in 2011 (USAID, 2011). According to BBC (2011), this drought was significantly severe as loss of lives was directly attributed to it e.g. John Munyes, the MP for Turkana then, attributed 14 deaths in his constituency due to lack of adequate food. According to the Kenyan Red Cross Society, the regions affected mostly by perennial droughts include; upper eastern regions, north rift regions, north eastern region, coastal region, lower eastern region and south rift region. These regions span over 18 counties in the country (KRC, 2011).

The government appealed for $ 245 million to assist the affected people following the 2005 drought. A New Zealand company offered to donate dog food to Kenya claiming it was highly nutritious but the Kenyan government turned down the offer. In response to the plea, the UK government offered $ 15 million to Kenya. Rate of acute malnutrition rose was 18-30% in the north eastern part of the country surpassing the WHO threshold of 15% indicating a critical situation. Following the 2011 drought, the then Kenyan president, Kibaki, declared a national drought emergency, authorizing the Ministry of Special Programs to distribute food and relief supplies to a targeted 1.7 million people per month in northern and eastern Kenya. President Kibaki also directed the Government of Kenya (GoK) Ministry of Finance to facilitate the urgent import of maize to reinforce the grain reserves, and allocated approximately $7 million to the GoK Ministry of Water and Irrigation and approximately $12 million to the GoK Ministry of Livestock Development for emergency drought response and pastoralist assistance interventions. The US government donated to Kenya over $ 100 million to assist the drought-stricken families (USAID, 2011).

Floods

According to the Kenyan Red Cross, floods affect the Lake Basin, North Eastern and coastal regions of Kenya. Mud and landslides occur in the central region e.g. Muranga district and north rift (KRC, 2009). Some regions e.g. Budalangi and Nyando districts have perennial floods. The Red Cross further reports that more than 21 people lost their lives directly related to floods and 30,000 individuals affected in 2009. Floods in the coastal regions killed 4 people in October 2011 while affecting thousands of others (Kikami, 2011). The irony is that the two disaster extremes i.e. floods and drought almost always occur in the same year in Kenya. This might present a solution in dealing with the disasters as excess water in floods is, in theory, obtainable and storable to be utilized in time where water is inadequate.

 Floods also cause losses in the destruction of infrastructure, the spread of water-borne diseases, contamination of groundwater and loss of food crops in farms (UNDP 2011). The Kenyan government spent KSH 4.5 billion for flood management in 2009-2010. This money was mainly redirected from other parts of the budget and solicited from donors (OCHA, 2011). This illustrates the lack of preparedness on the government’s part. The government of Kenya usually gives out bags of staple such as maize for the Red Cross to distribute in times of floods (OCHA, 2011).

Fires

The Kenyan Ministry of Special Programmes (2009) reports fire tragedies such as forest fires, Nakumatt[1] fire and Molo fire of 2009. The ministry reports that the response was timely on the part of the government with GSU officers on the scene before the fire started in Molo and Governments fire fighting officers arriving on the Nakumatt fire scene fifteen minutes after the fires broke out. Nevertheless, the Nakumatt fire claimed 39 lives while the fire caused by tanker explosion in Molo claimed 130 lives with 243 people hospitalized. The Kenyan president, Kibaki, set up a committee to fundraise and cover hospital and funeral expenses for the fire victims (Ministry of Special Programmes, 2009). In September 2011, a fire caused by pipeline leakage broke out in a slum in Nairobi causing the death of 101 people. The government conducted a search and rescue mission and covered again some medical and funeral expenses of the victims (USAID 2011b)

Other disasters

Suda (2000) mentions environmental degradation as a disaster. According to him, unsustainable consumption of renewable resources leads to exhaustion while no investment is made in substitutes. This leads to deterioration of living standards and increases in the vulnerability of communities that may result in disasters. The resources that are in constant risk of degradation in Kenya include; forest, water, and soil resources. UNDP (2011) also lists HIV and AIDS and conflicts as disasters in Kenya. On a broader scale, worldwide disasters can be categorized into geological disasters e.g. earthquakes, meteorological disasters e.g. droughts,  hydrological disasters e.g. floods, health disasters e.g. pandemics, space disasters e.g. solar flares and fires (NASA, 2011)

Significance of the government’s efforts in dealing with disasters

The policy framework for handling disasters by the Kenyan government is wanting. The government has focused on drafting a number of disaster management frameworks e.g. Kenya Government’s draft proposal on National Disaster Management Programme of 1996 (Suda, 2000) and draft management policy for disaster management in Kenya of 2008 (GoK, 2009). This shows that the government has cold feet in implementing the policies that might effectively handle issues related to disasters in the country.  Furthermore, implementation of some existing policy is nonexistence and literally waits for a disaster to happen before being implemented e.g. liquid petroleum gas (LPG) is supposed to be stored outside stores as per the Kenya Laws on safety- but this was only implemented after the Nakumatt fire tragedy of 2009. Nevertheless, having a draft policy on disasters is a significant step in addressing the issue of disasters in the country; it is vital that the policy is adopted and more importantly enforced.

The general lack of preparedness in times of disasters by the Kenyan government is alarming. For instance, the drought of 2011 was predicted by all the meteorological stations in Kenya in 2010 as a result of the La Nina phenomenon (KRC, 2011). There were no apparent tangible preparations by the Kenyan government following the warnings. The government responded when the effects of drought were severe in 2011 and a couple of lives already claimed. This is in contrast to the Kenyan Red Cross that started to appeal for assistance in 2010. The efforts undertaken by the government in dealing with disasters are sinister, to say the least. By definition, disasters are supposed to be spontaneous and strike people (whether rich or poor) at more or less equal probability. However, Suda (2000) reports that disasters in Kenya (more so natural disasters) tend to attack the poor and the vulnerable. The government ‘allows’ poor people to inhabit areas where they are exposed to risks and hazards for instance, the 2011 Nairobi fire tragedy on slum dwellers living close to an active pipeline.

Longely and Wekesa (2011) describe the emergency response undertaken by the Kenyan government are effective in terms of saving lives but are not designed to address the chronic drought-related issues of the most vulnerable groups. They suggest that the most effective way of delivering assistance in cases of drought are livelihood interventions. Livelihood interventions are strategies designed to protect or enhance people’s assets, livelihoods, and outcomes. Nabutola (2004) sees further a stark irony in the natural disasters of Kenya due to the inadequacy of the government in enhancing livelihoods; on one hand floods wreak havoc and the government focuses on the short term responses of resettlements on temporary higher grounds and offering basic commodities, on the other hand, drought make the government respond by declaring it a natural disasters and requesting for food aid. He offers a rather simplistic solution of ‘preparedness’ where in principle the government implements strategies of storing the floodwaters for future use through for example construction of dams that can boost food security in the country in times of drought. Additionally, Suda (2000) notes that the government has failed in preparing people in disaster-prone areas on how to ‘handle’ disasters once they occur as ineffective and to some extent outdated methods of reacting to disasters by victims.

The emergency efforts such as search and rescue mission undertaken by the government are important after a disaster e.g. fire.  When effectively done, this reduces significantly the number of casualties from a disaster. It is seen by others e.g. Ministry of Special Program (2011) and USAID (2011) that this reaction from the government significantly reduced the number of casualties in the fire and drought cases of 2011. The government accuses the media and non-governmental organizations of undermining its efforts in handling disasters and extrapolating the extent of the disasters.

The significance of interventions by the Kenyan government in handling flood disasters can be enhanced by increasing flood risk reduction for instance by increased measures of flood control, strengthening vulnerable people coping mechanisms, community preparedness before floods and enhancing early warning systems (OCHA, 2011). The mechanisms are also applicable in tackling other natural disasters compared to the ‘emergency responses’ that are ubiquitous with the government.

While disasters can be described as ‘accidents’, some of the disasters in Kenya can be said to be caused by the negligence of the Kenyan government in safeguarding its environment (UNDP, 2011; Suda 2000). This is true more so in the case of some droughts, floods and fires as some are more severe and frequent as a result of environmental degradation and disregard to environmental policies e.g. deforestation, not settling in flood plains and disregard of safety rules in planning for settlements. Furthermore, floods become more severe with increased deforestation upstream and unplanned development of urban centers as these activities impede on the infiltration rates of precipitation. In essence, the efforts undertaken by the government can be ‘preventive’ by safeguarding the quality of the environment.

Grain reserves are another strategy of the government in dealing with disasters in the country (BBC, 2009), more so when dealing with floods, drought, and other food safety-related types of disasters. The national grains reserved are stocked below capacity by the government and the allegations of corruption (BBC, 2009) are undermining the government efforts in tackling disasters related to food security. For instance, the reserves only lasted for six weeks during the 2009 drought. Grain reserves have the capacity and potential to cushion the country during periods of food insecurity caused by disasters or otherwise.

The committees set on the times of disasters are mainly constituted of politicians and as such technocrats are less in numbers (Nabutola, 2004). This reduces the effectiveness and thus the significance of government efforts in dealing with disasters as politicians more often than not are inclined to political decisions even if (as is not often the case) they are conversant with the nature of the disaster in question. Nabutola mentions this as among the possible reasons why the strategies of handling disasters are not long-term as politics is short-term in nature.

According to Longely and Wekesa (2011), coordination is a key problem in dealing with drought disasters by the government. The units dealing with drought issues are fragmented within the government structures thereby undermining the significance of the control measures undertaken by the government. For instance, there are coordination structures for drought response which are handled by the Office of the President Special Programs and long term development issues handled by the Agriculture Sector Coordination Unit (ASCU). Suda (2000) emphasizes this point and describes the government’s response to disasters as being ad hoc and uncoordinated. This is to add to the confusion within the ministries in an event of the disaster e.g. Ministries of Water and Irrigation, Northern Kenya and ASALS, Agriculture, Special Programs and Forestry. This duplicity of roles in the ministries makes it easier for the different departments/ministries to blame each other in the event of inadequacy as is often the case.

A general feeling of the government inadequacies in dealing with disasters made different stakeholders come up with an initiative dubbed Kenyans for Kenya following the drought and famine of 2011. The initiative enabled interested people to contribute money through the mobile phone and bank accounts. The initiative (whose sustainability can be questioned) is largely as a result of ‘filling the void’ that the government has left in handling disasters.

Albeit with the criticisms, a fundamental question is ‘what if the government did absolutely nothing in dealing with disasters?’  While it is a consensus that the government reactions to disasters are inadequate, the truth is that the actions, which are majorly responsive and emergency, actually save a significant number of lives. For example, declaring disasters national disasters to draw attention, supply of relief food and other basic commodities, search and rescue operations, the long term plans and so on. The government is usually the biggest contributor in one way or the other following major disasters for instance, during the 2011 drought the government budgeted for 30 billion shillings (KBC, 2011; USAID, 2011) compared to 700 million (Kenyans for Kenya, 2011) budgeted by the acclaimed Kenyans for Kenya initiative. The mainstream media rarely points out the positives of the government in handling disasters hence the widespread criticism of the government. The criticisms of the government in this essay see that there is room for improvement as it is not utilizing entirely its resources in handling disasters. As such, the evaluation is that the actions undertaken by the government are significant as they reduce the extent of disaster effects compared to when the government decides to do nothing in totality. However, the Kenyan government can do much better to enhance the significance of their reactions in times of disasters.

Another positive from the reaction of the government is that it sets standards for assistance. For example, the government refused to accept food aid from a New Zealand company following rampant drought in the country in 2005. It follows that the company was offering dog food claiming that it is very nutritious. This shows that the government values the health and dignity of its citizens even in times of adversity. Additionally, the early warning system, preparedness and policies of the government on disasters are improving with time (USAID, 2011) though they are not at their optimum.

Conclusions

Some disasters such as droughts have become ‘predictable emergencies’ in Kenya but they need not result in humanitarian crises. This is because more often than not, Kenya Meteorological Department predicts the weather condition as such it is sensible for all the relevant stakeholders to prepare before the weather-related disasters (OCHA 2011). Flash floods, however, are harder to predict. There is a need in the improvement of coordination and early warning systems by the government to increase their capacity in handling disasters.

Flood prone areas in Kenya such as Turkana, Coastal regions, Tana River areas and Mandera are also prone to droughts; sometimes even in the same year. Efforts ought to be made to mitigate the adverse effects of floods by capturing and storing the water and making use of it in the drought conditions. This can be done by storing the floodwaters in well-constructed dams. It is important to manage disasters effectively in Kenya as with the advent of climate change, extremes of weather conditions are becoming more frequent and intense. It is also emerging that most of the disasters in Kenya are a result of poor environmental practices on a global and regional scale such as deforestation and global warming causing climate change.

The government’s response to disasters in Kenya is mainly reactionary. While this response actually saves significant numbers of lives, it is important that the government changes the approach to proactive response as this will have even more significant impacts on disaster management. Proactive measures on disaster approach revolve around protecting and enhancing people’s livelihoods while building on resilience. It is, however, worthy to mention some of the complex challenges that may be faced by the government in offering seemingly simplistic solutions such as resettlement and preparedness; since land is valued by communities in Kenya, the idea of resettlement for any purpose is usually unwelcome. Furthermore, some communities prefer to stick to their traditional ways of handling disasters that may or may not be effective. It is, therefore, imperative that concerted efforts by all the stakeholders be undertaken in tackling the issues of disasters by the government.

[1] Nakumatt was one of the leading retail store in Kenya with many outlets countrywide. One of its store caught fire in 2009 following electric fault that was exacerbated by the presence of LPG in the store. Nakumatt is no longer a leading brand in Kenya