Diocese of Marsabit a Pilot Project in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) The Catholic Diocese of Marsabit covers two administrative districts of Moyale and Marsabit. The two districts are located in the Arid and Semi-arid (ASAL) areas in Northern Kenya. These areas are prone to drought on a cyclical basis. Analysis over the past two to three decades highlights the greater prevalence of drought in these areas, reduced recovery periods and increasing intensity. The main livelihoods of people living in the ASAL areas are largely dependent on consistent climatic conditions, particularly a reliable and predictable pattern of rainfall, with adequate recovery periods between droughts and floods. According to the Kenya Food Security Steering Group’s (KFSSG) Assessment Report, 2008, “reduced recovery periods between droughts are breaking down their existing coping strategies and increasing dependency on external humanitarian interventions”. Further, conflicts over scarce resources resulting from the harsh climatic conditions continue to dog these ASAL areas.  Rains are supposed to fall twice a year; the long rains fall between March to May and the short rains in October - December.  These rains have been unreliable and inadequate over the years. 

According to the KFSSG’s Long Rains Assessment Report, 2008, a significant and growing proportion of the population in Northern Kenya suffers chronic and acute food insecurity. The population is not able to meet their minimum food requirements during the drought periods. For instance, the poor performance of the long rains season in 2008 was compounded by a complex combination of other food security factors within the livelihoods including the spread of the highly virulent Peste de Petits Ruminants (PPR) livestock disease which has a mortality rate of 50-80 percent, heightened food and non-food prices, rising conflict; below normal short rains seasons and reduced resilience caused by cumulative effects of consecutive years of eroded coping strategies caused by drought, floods and conflict.   The report indicated that food security has been declining in the Northern areas and in the significant areas of the agro pastoral and marginal agricultural clusters. The long rains was characterised by early cessation and most areas reported less than 50 percent of normal rainfall. 

The poor rains resulted in livestock and pastoralists having to trek distances of up to 15-20 Kilometres in search of water and pasture instead of the seasonal norm of 7-10 as the drought conditions set in earlier than usual. This extensive trekking caused a marked deterioration in livestock body conditions. Furthermore, livestock disease outbreak resulted in movement quarantines and closure of markets, thus limiting trade. Moreover, food prices rose up to 50-80 percent higher than normal, while crop yields declined by up to 80 percent in agro pastoral areas. Unrelenting conflicts over limited resources including water points and pasture also compromised livestock production; rendered extensive areas inaccessible, thus resulting in poor utilization of pastures; caused closure of markets and resulted in the loss of human life and livestock.

The Diocese of Marsabit also faces a severe problem of malnutrition due to reduced food access and availability emanating from the increased commodity prices, crop failure, poor dietary diversification, poor child care practices, inadequate clean water and poor hygiene and sanitation. Serious water shortages are reported to have pushed the price of water from Kshs. 20 to 60 per litre can in the affected areas of Marsabit and further eroding purchasing capacities.

Further, a growing share of the devastation triggered by natural disasters stems from ecologically destructive practices. Many ecosystems have been frayed to the extent that they are not able to withstand natural disturbances, setting the stage for human induced disasters. For instance, forest degradation due to overgrazing has been a major contributing factor to climate destabilization. Environmental degradation in the area has been triggered by poverty and lack of a variety of livelihood strategies. The poor pursue unsustainable resource management practices such as overgrazing which weighs heavily on the fragile environment. 

According to the Kenya Food Security Update, January 2009, the situation is worsening as a result of the failure of the December short rains. The report shows food security has deteriorated to critical levels and the livestock body conditions are rapidly deteriorating due to inadequate pasture, browse and water. Currently, the food commodity prices are more than 120 percent above long-term averages across the region and on an upward trend. The report predicts that the resulting migration of livestock towards limited water resources is likely to exacerbate conflict and predispose livestock disease, leading to livestock productivity loss and, in some instances, increased mortality. In a nutshell, a succession of failed seasons in substantial areas in Northern Kenya, the PPR and other livestock diseases, conflict in the pastoral areas, the unprecedented rise in food and non-food prices, crop failure, and substantial gaps in non-food interventions have combined to predict acute food insecurity while heightening chronic food insecurity across the arid and semi-arid areas in Northern Kenya.

The communities’ in ability to predict, prepare for and mitigate the effects of disasters, acute water shortage for human and livestock use during prolonged droughts and unsustainable natural resources management practices are major problems that the proposed project is going to tackle. Due to the cyclical occurrence of disasters, it has been difficult to realize long term sustainable development in the target area.  To address these problems, CAFOD plans to support the Diocese of Marsabit to embark on a capacity building exercise of the target local communities to predict, prepare for and mitigate the effects of disasters through community managed processes by implementing a two-year pilot phase of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Project whose overarching goal is, “increased resilience of vulnerable communities in the Diocese of Marsabit in the light of recurrent climatic shocks and disasters”. This will be achieved by implementing a number of carefully selected activities including undertaking a baseline survey, contingency planning and disaster preparedness trainings, development and implementation of community-managed disaster preparedness plans and development and rehabilitation of water points, development of early warning systems and advocacy on DRR and climate change. This project plans to target 3,000 beneficiaries from the most vulnerable drought-prone communities living in the Locations of Kargi, Hurri Hills, Dirib Gombo and Sololo. 

The proposed DRR Pilot phase will be an intermediate recovery, mitigation and preparedness phase in the Diocese of Marsabit after a three months’ humanitarian project being supported by CAFOD. The project is also indented to strengthen the existing integrated Sustainable Livelihoods and Peacebuilding project already being supported by CAFOD in the diocese. The peacebuilding component will be a crucial component in addressing resource-based conflicts in the target areas. The proposed project will therefore not be a stand alone project but will be systematically integrated with the existing CAFOD supported projects in the Diocese. In this way, the project offers a good opportunity for addressing disaster issues in an holistic manner. This holistic approach is believed will result in increased impact in reducing community vulnerability to recurrent disasters.