Marsabit Intergrated Drought Recovery Project Marsabit is a pastoral and agro pastoral zone located in upper Eastern Kenya bordering Isiolo to the South East and Wajir to the East. It is one of Kenya's Arid counties located in Eastern Province. The County has a population of 291,166. The main livelihood activities in Marsabit are Pastoral and agro-pastoral which account for 70% and 20% respectively. Livestock and livestock products are a predominant source of food and income to households. Most parts of the County other than Marsabit town chronically experience water scarcity and food insecurity due to frequent drought, recurrent livestock disease outbreaks, poor market and road infrastructure, insecurity from cross boarder raiding and resource based conflicts.  

In 2010 Marsabit, experienced its worst drought in many years due to failure of the long rains in April and scanty rains in preceding years. As a result both water and grazing fields for animals vanished and cattle prices reduced drastically. This led to deterioration of nutrition status particularly children requiring supplementation of protein rich food sources and the problem was exacerbated by a worldwide rise in food prices with the price of grain in affected areas being 30-80% above average. In many parts of Marsabit, up to 75 percent of the pastoralist’s herds perished.  Animal prices plummeted since the surviving ones had become very emanciated while the cost of cereals soared. Malnutrition rates stood at mean of 27 %. 
After humanitarian assessment and lobbying by UN and other humanitarian agencies working in the region followed by media attention in the draught situation at the Horn and East African region where Marsabit lies, humanitarian agencies responded to the crisis with such programmes as food distribution, water trucking, Blanket supplementary feeding, cash for work programmes etc.  Cafod responded to the crisis through the diocese of Marsabit.
The situation has so far changed since and some rains fell as early as September filling some dams (e.g Kargi in Marsabit). The greatest rains however fell in the months of October and November and the first week of December. This has provided reprieve to the surviving livestock since the grazing pastures have recovered with grass. The larger human population however still remains vulnerable since it will still take at least 6 months to produce dependable food even with the rains.  The pastoralist community also largely depends on livestock for their livelihood and food but only a few herd of livestock remained after most of it perished with the draught.  Milk and food prices are still high in Marsabit.
The interventions by the Catholic Diocese of Marsabit in its drought response included cash for work for rehabilitation and desalting of water pans with the aim of providing an income to the affected community so that they could purchase food locally and the second aim being to increase the water storage. Three of the planned water pans are now complete and already filled with water as a result of the rains. The diocese also partnered with WFP to provide a BSFP programme in the affected region mainly through the diocese medical centres.

The proposed project will build on gains made during the emergency draught response by enhancing the resilience of the communities affected by the drought through supporting livelihoods of vulnerable groups, contributing to enhancing ongoing DRR programme and nutrition intervention and education with introduction of kitchen gardens.