The La Niña phenomenon is keeping East Africa drier than usual and has sparked food-security concerns in areas lacking irrigation (kunstvanding), including parts of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania
NAIROBI, 18 February 2011 (IRIN): Since November, East African countries have registered serious drought conditions that are likely to worsen in coming months. According to data recently released by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the La Niña weather effect is largely responsible.
La Niña is the name given to the cooling of the surface of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean that occurs every two to five years. It keeps East Africa drier than usual and sparks food-security concerns in areas lacking irrigation, including parts of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania.
WMO said the phenomenon might last up to four more months and emphasized that it was already possible to notice “some very dry parts of eastern Africa” amid harsher weather conditions than normal for this time of year.
Kenya and Somalia are among the countries already affected. – Some areas in the North are a disaster right now, said Mohamoud Duale, director of the NGO Rural Agency for Community Development and Assistance (RACIDA).
In northern Isiolo, Marsabit, Moyale and Samburu districts, at least 150.000 people urgently need food aid, most of them women, children and the elderly.
Duale was in Nairobi for a media briefing, titled “Drought in Kenya: When will it ever end?”, sponsored by Oxfam, Cordaid, Care International, Save the Children, VSF-Belgium and Reconcile.
The assistant minister in the Kenyan Ministry of State for Special Programmes, Mahmoud Ali, was also at the event and stressed that the government was providing food assistance to one million Kenyans while the World Food Programme (WFP) was distributing food to another 1,6 million people.
– The total population affected by the La Niña phenomenon is about five million people, hence the need to provide food to an additional 2,4 million persons, he added.
Ali pointed out that to minimize the drought effects the government had reallocated 9,5 billion Kenya shillings (118 million US dollar) to the affected areas, mainly in northern Kenya.
Among the new measures are 57 trucks to assist in the delivery of relief commodities to affected areas, livestock vaccinations, construction of scale pans and dams and distribution of aqua tabs to purify (rense) water.
Emergency aid
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