K
en
ya 1
st
Quart
er
2014 Report
::
17 A
pril 2014
Country: Kenya
Food Security & Nutrition
Situation
The Government supported by WFP and other partners,
conducted food security assessments in arid and semi-
arid lands (ASAL). Assessments analysed the impact of the short rains season (October to December 2013) on
food security, taking into account the cumulative effects of the previous seasons. The assessments found that the
situation remains stressed in many parts of Kenya, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase
Classification (IPC). Some pockets in Marsabit and
Turkana counties were in ‘crisis’, indicating a more food insecure situation. The causes of food insecurity at
household level include poor rains performance, intercommunity-conflicts and a gradual seasonal increase
in dependency on the market for food. Compared to
August 2013, the population facing food shortages due to recent shocks increased from 850,000 to 1.29 million
people.
The percentage of children `at risk’ of malnutrition, with a mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) of less than
13.5cm, remained stable and below-average nationally.
Admissions to supplementary feeding programmes were lower than the seasonal average. Nevertheless, areas of
concern include Isiolo, Marsabit, Mandera, Turkana and West Pokot.
The assessment identified short- and long-term multisectoral interventions that should be implemented
to meet immediate needs and build the resilience of the households in combating climatic shocks. Most
recommended interventions are in crop farming, livestock, water, health and nutrition and education. The
full assessment report can be found at www.wfp.org/
kenya.
The forecast for the ongoing long rains season (March-May) is positive. The rains started in a timely manner,
and are expected to have a normal to above-normal
distribution in most parts of the country with the exception of Marsabit and Mandera, where low rainfall is
expected.
This report covers the first quarter of 2014. The beneficiary numbers shown in the table below (and in annex 1) indicate the highest number that WFP reached during the reporting period.
Highlights in numbers
Number of food insecure Kenyans accord-ing to the latest assessments for April-September 2014
1.29 million
Number of drought-prone Kenyans who received WFP food assistance in January-March 2014
892,000
Number of refugees provided with WFP food assistance
479,000
Number of new asylum seekers from South Sudan who had arrived in Kakuma by end of March
32,000
Number of school children in food-scarce areas in Kenya and in the refugee camps provided with hot meals
888,000
Number of women and children reached
through supplementary feeding pro-grammes (prevention and treatment of acute malnutrition)
134,000
Number of smallholder farmers linked to markets through Purchase for Progress
15,000
Funding required to meet WFP shortfalls over the next six months
US$62 mil-lion
2
Building Resilience to Food
Security Shocks
WFP, together with national and county
governments, will continue to respond to the needs
of the most food-insecure people mostly through food assistance for assets (FFA) as part of
interventions that support resilience of communities and households to food security shocks. Where
hunger is acute and no FFA activities are on-going, WFP and the Government will provide short-term
support to fill the food gaps and protect livelihoods
through general food distributions.
WFP is studying and assessing the contribution of FFA towards strengthening resilience of poor rural
households. The study will propose an approach to
evaluating households or communities that have attained significant levels of food security and could
be ready to graduate or to be phased-into other longer-term development programmes. Data was
collected in four counties in the marginal agricultural livelihood zone: Kilifi, Kitui, Kwale and Taita Taveta.
WFP and the World Bank have been exploring possible areas of synergy and opportunities for
graduating FFA beneficiaries to longer-term development projects. As a start, two FFA groups in
Kwale were awarded loans from the World Bank-
supported Kenya Coastal Development Project (KCDP). KCDP has trained the project committee
members on procurement and financial management.
The ASAL donor working group is preparing joint
programming documents on key themes (including
sustainable livelihoods, human capital, and disaster risk reduction) in the drought-prone areas of Kenya.
The common programme framework aims to align programmes, policies and funding with national and
county priorities as outlined in the second medium
term plan (MTP2) of Vision 2030. The working group is an informal partnership of development partners
in Kenya that is striving to improve coordination,
coherence and alignment of multi-sector investments
in the ASAL. It is supporting the Government’s resilience-building agenda in a process that started
after the 2011 drought crisis in the Horn of Africa, when governments and development partners
pledged to work differently to end drought
emergencies.
Capacity Strengthening of National & County
Governments At the request of the Turkana County Government, WFP and 10 other United Nations agencies joined
the county government in planning and conducting a rapid assessment on development projects and
programmes in the county. The assessment teams visited the seven sub-counties between 13 and 17
February. The mission reviewed secondary sources
of information to generate baseline data and held community consultations to guide planning and
investments. The mission concluded that there was a need to revise the County Integrated Development
Plan to include the people’s aspirations, and to
ensure coherence with MTP2. Turkana is one of the driest, poorest and chronically food-insecure
counties in Kenya, lagging behind in almost all human development indicators. However, the county
has huge growth potential from recently discovered
natural resources - oil and water. The United Nations hopes to develop joint programming for Turkana.
Refugees
By the end of March, 32,000 asylum seekers had been received in Kenya from South Sudan since
violence erupted in mid-December, bringing the total in the UNHCR register in Kakuma to 148,000.
UNHCR and the Government are still negotiating
with local communities for a new camp site 70 km north of Kakuma. In Dadaab, there were 357,000
refugees in UNHCR’s registration database. There was a difference between the number of refugees in
the registration database and those receiving food
from WFP in March (133,000 in Kakuma and 339,000 in Dadaab). This is because food ration cards are
invalidated for households who do not turn up to collect food for three consecutive distribution cycles.
Refugees can re-activate their cards at the food distribution centres or the UNHCR field offices if they
are physically present.
WFP and UNHCR continued capturing the
fingerprints of all new arrivals not yet fully registered, and set up biometrics at the temporary
food distribution centre in Kakuma camp 4. Refugees
not fully registered use tokens to collect food: fingerprinting token-holders ensures that each
household receives only one token and prevents
Ken
ya 1
st
Quart
er
2014 Report
::
17 A
pril 2014
A maize farm in Kilifi in the coast region where poor farmers were taught how to harvest
rain water and conserve soils through FFA. PHOTO/WFP
3
already-registered refugees from posing as new
arrivals. Linking unaccompanied children’s fingerprints to their tokens means no-one else can
collect food on their behalf, thereby reducing the risk that they will be exploited or have their tokens
stolen.
WFP is conducting an external evaluation of its operation assisting refugees in Kenya. The evaluation
will serve the dual and mutually reinforcing objectives of accountability and learning to inform
decision-making. The final report with findings and
recommendations is expected in mid-2014.
UNHCR and International Organization for Migration are conducting a comprehensive ‘return intention
survey’ in Dadaab. The purpose is to understand the
needs and concerns of Somali refugees and to prepare for eventual interests in voluntary returns.
In late March, the Ministry of Interior & Coordination
of National Government designated the refugee camps in Dadaab and Kakuma as the only areas
where refugees in Kenya should reside and directed
all refugees to return to the camps, immediately closing all registration centres in urban areas. The
majority of the urban refugees are from Somalia, making it more likely for them to return to Dadaab
rather than to Kakuma, meaning there is less risk of
the directive causing increased congestion in Kakuma.
Nutrition Support In Kakuma, nutrition screening of new arrivals by the end of February showed a Global acute malnutrition
(GAM) for the children was about 13 percent and that 3 percent of the pregnant and lactating women
had a MUAC of less than 21cm. International Rescue
Committee, WFP’s partner for nutrition activities in Kakuma, plans to conduct a mass MUAC screening in
the camp area where the new arrivals have settled to identify children who may not have turned up in
health centres after being referred at reception
centre. WFP continued providing emergency food assistance to the new arrivals at the border
point, reception centres and in the settlements. This included high-energy biscuits at the border and
specialised nutrition products, such as Super Cereal
Plus, for all children aged 6-23 months at the camp.
For WFP Kenya nutrition activities generally, WFP participated in a ‘Vitamin A Supplementation
Behaviour Change and Communication Strategy’ workshop convened by nutrition unit at the Ministry
of Health. WFP plans to roll out micronutrient powder
supplementation for children aged 6-23 months and schoolchildren. The workshop helped WFP to assess
the overlapping synergies in the methods used for behaviour change communication in the roll out of
vitamin A supplementation.
In 2014, WFP is targeting 3,000 people affected by
HIV by providing a monthly ration of Super Cereal. WFP is supporting the Government to revise nutrition
guidelines for people living with HIV, scheduled to be completed 2014. WFP is also supporting the
Government to conduct a national nutrition
vulnerability profiling survey and the survey report is being finalized.
School meals
The new school year started in January. WFP
continued to provide hot school lunches to 770,000 children in 10 arid counties under the regular school
meals programme. The meals not only as serve as an incentive for children to enrol, attend and
complete school, but also to improve their dietary
intake. This included the 40,000 pupils in Isiolo County that received meals through the use of cash
transfers to schools; this is part of the handover process, using improved business systems and
processes for the government home-grown school meals programme (HGSMP). The HGSMP, which was
started in 2009, has already taken over most of the
schools in marginal agricultural (semi-arid) areas, currently supporting 760,000 children.
Ken
ya 1
st
Quart
er
2014 Report
::
17 A
pril 2014
Newly arrived refugees from South Sudan being served meals in Kakuma. PHOTO: WFP/
Rose Ogola
Children in Atan Primary School taking lunch. This is one of the schools in Isiolo that received
cash from WFP to purchase food from local traders. PHOTO: WFP/ Rose Ogola
4
WFP and the Ministry of Education, Science and
Technology conducted an evaluation of HGSMP. The evaluation aimed to showcase progress made and
provide an objective assessment to determine whether the programme is achieving its intended
objectives. Preliminary results presented to
stakeholders in March indicate that HGSMP is highly relevant in Kenyan context where poverty, food
insecurity, malnutrition and insufficient agricultural production are prevalent. The evaluation will inform
the Government, WFP and other stakeholders on areas that require further capacity development and
the kind of investment necessary to make the
HGSMP more effective and efficient. A comprehensive report is expected in April 2014.
WFP hosted a delegation from The Gambia,
comprising the Government of The Gambia and WFP
staff, to learn about the HGSMP in Kenya as part of South-South learning. Specifically, the Gambian
delegation sought to: understand programme management
processes in Kenya, stakeholders’
involvement, roles and responsibilities;
study the linkage between Kenya’s school
feeding programme and local agricultural production and how this process is
coordinated; have a better understanding of the value
chain around the production of food for school feeding, local procurement models and
mechanisms being used in Kenya; and learn best practices in financing, production,
processing, marketing, storage and logistics of
linking school feeding to local agricultural
production.
The lessons drawn from the visit will be used to inform a local procurement feasibility study and
home-grown school feeding pilot in The Gambia. South-South learning has been recognised widely as
an important capacity development tool through
sharing experiences and arriving at solutions to shared development challenges.
In the refugee camps, WFP provided school meals to
120,000 children in Kakuma (20 schools) and
Dadaab (31 schools). A temporary school for newly arrived children in Kakuma is being set up. WFP
continued to support food-for-training by providing lunch to vocational learners from refugee and host
communities attending courses such as dress making and computer lessons.
Linking Smallholder Farmers to
Markets
WFP is supporting 15,000 farmers through the
Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative in Kenya. In February, WFP issued tenders for farmer
organizations and small-scale traders to supply 1,695
mt of maize worth US$680,000 (KES 58 million) for WFP’s Forward Purchasing Facility. The contracts will
directly benefit smallholder farmers in four counties in the North Rift region by providing a market for
their produce. Being immediately after the harvest,
this should be the right period to purchase from local farmers. WFP and quality assurance companies
trained contracted groups on stacking, sorting, cleaning, grading, and storage in order to improve
the quality of the grains. WFP will continue to invest in capacity building of farmer organizations to access
structured markets and also meet the quality
standards demanded. WFP will continue to support farmers to sell surplus produce to HGSMP schools
and other structured markets.
One of the biggest achievements of P4P has been
bringing together diverse partners to assist
smallholder farmers improve production and engage formal markets. WFP is exploring a possible
partnership with the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI), one of the leading agricultural
research organizations in Kenya. WFP hopes to engage KARI to hold on-farm demonstrations on
new farming technologies and seeds to smallholder
farmers in the semi-arid areas to cushion them against heavy losses incurred because of low and
erratic rainfall, land degradation and water depletion.
Ken
ya 1
st
Quart
er
2014 Report
::
17 A
pril 2014
Dried foods being sold by small-scale traders in a market in Eldoret town, one of the high
potential farming areas in Kenya where WFP is supporting small holder farmers and small-
scale traders to engage in formal trade
PHOTO: WFP/ David Orr
5
Donor Missions to WFP Operations
During the first quarter of 2014, several donors
visited WFP operations, as follows:
On 11 January, a joint technical mission from the
embassies of France, Switzerland and Sweden as well as the EU’s Humanitarian Aid & Civil
Protection (ECHO) visited Dadaab refugee
camps.
On 24 January, the Canadian High Commissioner
to Kenya, together with Assistant Deputy
Ministers Lise Filiatrault and Nadir Patel visited small holder farmers organizations in Machakos
County, who have been assisted by WFP through
Canada’s financial support.
On 3 February, the Swedish Ambassador to
Kenya H.E. Mr. Johan Borgstam, Finland
Ambassador H.E. Mrs From-Emmesberger and the South African High Commissioner H.E. Mr.
Ratubatsi Moloi visited Dadaab refugee camps.
Officials from the Swedish and Finland embassies were also part of the mission.
On 7 February, the United States of America’s
Ambassador to Kenya, H.E Mr. Robert F. Godec visited Stara Rescue Centre and School in Nairobi
accompanied by staff from US State Department
of Agriculture. The purpose of the visit was to celebrate 50 years of Kenya-USA partnership and
10 years of support to school feeding in the Kenya.
Between 11 and 13 February, a delegation from
Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development (DFTAD) visited Isiolo, where
WFP is piloting cash transfer to schools. Another mission from DFTAD visited Turkana (including
with Australia for the Kakuma section of the
mission) between 10-13 March.
On 20 February, a joint mission with H.E Mr.
Tatsushi Terada - Japanese Ambassador to
Kenya, Ms. Tina Dooley-Jones, Deputy Mission Director – USAID Kenya and Mr. Erik Habers,
Head of European Cooperation toured Baringo
County. They visited FFA projects and a health centre, accompanied by senior government
officers from the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, and National Drought
Management Authority. County government
officials were also part of the mission.
On 28 February, the German Ambassador to
Kenya, H.E Andreas Peschke visited UNHCR and
WFP operations in Kakuma refugee camps.
Between 27 and 28 March, a technical team from
UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and ECHO visited Kakuma refugee camp
for regular monitoring of programmes.
Pipeline & Resourcing
As of 31 March, WFP’s six-month shortfall (through September 2014) for operations in Kenya as
US$61.6 million, as follows:
PRRO 200294 - Drought Recovery operation: the operation has a gross shortfall of US$34
million, including cash transfers, capacity development and outstanding advances. The amount
of Super Cereal available is low and available stocks
are being prioritised to targeted supplementary feeding programme for pregnant and lactating
women. Funds available for cash transfers will only cover needs through April 2014.
PRRO 200174 - Refugee operation: The six-
month funding shortfall is US$18.9 million including outstanding loans. The most immediate
requirements are Super Cereals and vegetable oil. The food stock levels in the camps are low but food
is being delivered. Any logistical constraints due to
poor road conditions as the rainy season approaches could affect food distributions particularly in Kakuma
where there are daily food distributions to newly arrived South Sudanese refugees.
CP 106680 - Country Programme: As of 31
March, the HIV programme had a long outstanding loan of 1,500 mt of food valued at US$1.2 million
which needs to be cleared before the project end in
June.
The new Country Programme (CP 200680) is planned to start in July 2014, after approval by the
WFP Executive Board in June. The shortfalls are as follows: Components 1&3 – US$1.3 million for
capacity development of devolved structures and
smallholder farmers while Component 2 (school meals) has a shortfall of US$6.2 million for the
third school term that starts in September, of which US$724,000 is for cash transfers.
Ken
ya 1
st
Quart
er
2014 Report
::
17 A
pril 2014
6
K
en
ya 1
st
Quart
er
2014 Report
::
17 A
pril 2014
PRRO 200294: Protecting & Rebuilding Livelihoods in ASAL
Beneficiaries Tonnage (mt) Cash Transfers (US$
Planned Actual Planned Actual Planned Actual
General Food Distribu-
tions (GFD)
Food 347,600 334,235 7,672 5,087
Cash 1,000 998 12,212 6,127
Food Assistance for As-
sets (FFA)*
Food 260,800 176,609 6,255 4,162 2,158,333 8,205,528
Cash 370,000 356,742
Targeted Supplementary
Feeding (TSFP)
Food 26,100 23,656 585 310
TOTAL 1,005,500 892,240 14,512 9,559 2,170,545 8,211,655
*During the reporting period, WFP completed paying off all cash arrears owed to households in marginal
agricultural areas that have been participating in FFA in 2013.This explains why more cash was disbursed to
beneficiaries compared to the plan.
PRRO 200174: Food Assistance to Refugees in Kenya
Beneficiaries Tonnage (mt) Voucher Transfers (US$
Planned Actual Planned Actual Planned Actual
General Food Distributions (GFD) 520,000 479,506 26,208 23,340
Nutrition Support – children aged 6
to 59 months, pregnant and lactat-
ing women (prevention and treat-
ment)
77,500 66,076 1,106 750 321,550 242,400
School Meals Progamme 120,000 120,017 759 717
HIV and TB Clients (including feed-
ing of inpatients)
1,800 2,700 90 30
Food for Training (youth from host
and refugee communities)
1,600 1,503 33 11
Food Assistance for Assets (host
communities)
36,000 13,590 1,426 980
TOTAL (Refugees +Host Com-
munity)
556,000 493,096 29,622 25,827 321,550 242,400
CP 106680 - Country Programme Kenya (January 2009 - June 2014) Beneficiaries Tonnage (mt) Cash Transfers (US$
Planned Actual Planned Actual Planned Actual
School Meals Programme 770,000 768,221 9,853 9,833 392,000 289,000
HIV & AIDS Programme 3,000 2,052 54 37
TOTAL 773,000 770,273 9,840 9,870 392,000 289,000
The Ministry of Education provides termly (not monthly) reports for the school meals pro-
gramme. Because of the expanse geographical coverage and remoteness of the arid region, delays are experienced in receiving consolidated county reports. Actual achievement in the
first school term of 2014 (January to April 2014) have been estimated.
Annex 1: Food and Cash/Voucher Distributions: January-March 2014
Top Related