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Seven out of 10 people, representing 71 percent of the population in Turkana County, still practice open defecation, with only nine percent having access to basic sanitation services.

Consequently, in the pastoralist county only 44 percent of households have access to sufficient drinking water, pointing to the possibility that the majority of the water sources are contaminated by human waste.

Their Samburu neighbours face a similar problem, as half of the community relieve themselves in the open, with only 14 percent having access to a toilet. Like Turkana, only 44 percent of Samburu households have access to sufficient drinking water.

Other counties with a high rate of open defecation include Tana River (55 percent), Marsabit (42 percent), Wajir (40 percent), West Pokot (36 percent), Baringo and Mandera (33.6 percent and 27 percent, respectively).
Waterborne diseases

Most of these counties are inhabited by pastoralists who may encounter sanitation challenges as they are always on the move with their livestock.

Further, statistics indicate that only a few households have a sufficient supply of drinking water, leaving a majority of the community at a risk of contracting waterborne diseases like cholera and diarrhoea.

In Nyamira, Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisii and Bungoma counties, no single case of open defecation was reported in the 2022 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, while another 16 counties had no more than one case.

Garissa, an arid county, has only 20 percent of its households with clean water, the lowest in the country, followed by Wajir and Isiolo at 31 per cent each and Mandera with 34 percent.

Additionally, in Tana River, only 43 percent of households have enough drinking water; Lamu (43 percent), Marsabit (42 percent), Samburu (44 percent and Kilifi (47 percent) are some of the counties where half of their population have inadequate supply of drinking water.

Unprotected wells

Meanwhile, in Kisii and Vihiga, nine of 10 households have adequate supply of drinking water, representing 90 percent of the entire population and the highest in the country.

Similarly, over 80 percent of households in Kakamega, Machakos, Makueni and West Pokot have access to sufficient drinking water.

Nationally, seven out of 10 Kenyans, representing 68 percent of the population, have access to safe drinking water.

However, according to Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis, about 31.6 percent of the population uses unimproved drinking water sources, comprising 7.3 percent of the population using unprotected dug wells, 4.4 percent using unprotected springs, 1.5 per cent using tanker trucks or carts with drum, and 18.4 per cent using surface water.

A higher number, an estimated 91 per cent of the urban population, have access to improved drinking water sources, compared with 56 percent of the rural population.

Main sources

Kippra adds that the main sources of drinking water in Kenya includes piped water, borehole with pump, protected spring, protected well, rainwater and bottled water.

Cumulatively, only 12 counties were identified as having low supply of the commodity on a list that also includes HomaBay among counties in the arid and semi arid regions.

For its part, Kippra explains that Kenya is a water-scarce country because it has one of the lowest freshwater replenishment rates in the world at 647 cubic metre per capita, which is below the global benchmark of 1,000 cubic metre per capita.