ABSTRACT
When the long rains of 2009 failed in Kenya, 3.8 million people were faced with hunger (World Food Programme, 2009). Pastoralists and small-scale farmers in the country’s arid and semi-arid lands, which comprise 80 per cent of the country’s total landmass, were hit the hardest. In some villages it had not rained in years. Acute malnutrition rates among children under five rose above 20 per cent in some areas – well above the 15 per cent emergency threshold (World Food Programme, 2009). In the capital, Nairobi, the dam which supplies the city’s water suffered a sharp decline in water levels and residents were subject to water rationing programmes that forced residents to pay high prices charged by private water vendors (Kenya Broadcasting Corporation, 2009). When the rains finally came, they brought massive floods that killed more than 70 people and left 70,000 more in need of emergency assistance after their homes, crops and basic infrastructure were washed away (ICRC, 2010). Contamination of local water sources from collapsed sewers and latrines and the creation of mosquito habitat led to outbreaks of cholera, malaria and other water-related illnesses (ICRC, 2010).
