The Government has rolled out various interventions to alleviate the debilitating effects of drought on communities in Arid and Semi-Arid Land (Asal) regions.

The ongoing drought as a result of diminished rainfall in the last three seasons has led to about 2.8 million Kenyans from 23 Asal regions facing food distress.

The interventions by the government include, Emergency Relief Cash Transfer, launched in December, 2021, targeting 225,705 beneficiary households from the affected counties.

In a press release, Government Spokesperson Cyrus Oguna said each beneficiary received Sh3,000 as emergency relief and the total amount disbursed is Sh677,115,000 in December, 2021, and another similar amount for January/February, 2022 period.

The second intervention, he added, is Physical Food Distribution whereby due to technical challenges experienced with Emergency Cash Transfers affecting a few individuals in the targeted group, the government re-introduced physical food distribution to all the counties as an emergency intervention.

“The amount of food currently being distributed to the counties include, 63,100 (50kg) bags of rice, 62,000 (50kg) bags of beans and 800 cartons of corned beef,” said Col (Rtd) Oguna, stating that the physical distribution of relief food does not replace the Emergency Cash Transfer but an emergency intervention to help in areas where food may be a challenge to acquire even when one has the money.

The spokesperson said other short-term interventions include water trucking to provide water for livestock/domestic use and the off-take programme which aims to off-load very weak cattle from farmers at a fee.

For this programme, Oguna said the government had allocated Sh450 million for phase one

 and that a similar amount is earmarked for Phase Two expected to start soon.

– KNA