Diocese of Isiolo a Pilot Project on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) The Catholic Diocese of Isiolo covers two administrative districts of Isiolo and Garbatulla. 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. The poor performance of the long rains season 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 10 Kilometres in search of water and pasture as the drought conditions set in earlier than usual. 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 in Isiolo District. Conflicts over limited resources including water points and pasture is causing displacement and negating livestock production prospects.

According to the Arid Lands Resource Management Project (ALRMP) Early Warning System bulletins and an assessment carried out by the District Steering Group (DSG) in July 2008 the poor rainfall has resulted to pasture depletion, poor harvest and deterioration of the livestock body conditions. This has further led to reduced earnings from livestock sales and increased food insecurity. 

According to the Kenya Food Security Update, January 2009, the situation is worsening as a result of the failure of 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 conflicts 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, conflicts 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 resource 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 build resilience of the local communities to the adverse impact of recurrent droughts and other disasters, CAFOD plans to support the Development Office of the Diocese of Isiolo to implement a two year DRR project whose overarching goal is "reduced impact of disasters on the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable communities in the Diocese of Isiolo". The main focus for the two-year DRR Project is to empower the vulnerable pastoralists and agro-pastoralists communities to effectively prepare, mitigate and manage the adverse effects of 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, development and rehabilitation of water points, developing community early warning systems and advocacy on DRR and climate change. 

The project is intended to strengthen the establishment of sustainable livelihoods that are geared towards reduction of vulnerabilities of communities to hazardous effects. The proposed DRR Pilot phase will be an intermediate recovery, mitigation and preparedness phase in the Diocese of Isiolo after a three months’ humanitarian project being supported by CAFOD. The project is also indented to strengthen the existing integrated Sustainable Livelihoods and Peacebuilding projects already being supported by CAFOD in the diocese. The peacebuilding component will be a crucial component in addressing resource conflicts. 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. 

The project plans to target 8,380 beneficiaries from the most vulnerable drought-prone communities of Korbessa, Kina, Badana and Oldonyiro with plans of scaling up the project activities in other vulnerable communities living in Merti Center, Kisile, and Modogashe in the subsequent project cycles based on availability of funds. These areas were selected based on need and vulnerability to droughts and other climatic shocks.