Early recovery strategies against impacts of drought among the households of Turkana and Kilifi Counties

Abstract

Drought is a slow on-set disaster that has ravaged various parts of Kenya with shaky livelihood options for survival. Turkana and Kilifi Counties have been vulnerable to drought effects for quite some time in spite of interventions from government and other humanitarian players. Early Recovery (ER) is an approach that addresses recovery needs that arise during the humanitarian phase of an emergency using humanitarian mechanisms’ that align with development principles. It enables people to use benefits of humanitarian action to seize development opportunities, build resilience and establish a sustainable process of recovery from crisis. Considering the perspective of people impacted by recurrent droughts as it is the case in this study, ER should ideally help these communities to move from humanitarian relief towards self-sustaining development and integrate humanitarian response community actions and capacities to strength¬en individual’s and communities’ resilience to future drought disasters thereby reduce dependence on relief. This study seeks to investigate the Effectiveness of Early Recovery Strategies on Sustainable Livelihood Options against Drought among Households in Turkana and Kilifi Counties, Kenya. It looks at a multi-sectoral approach that combines short and medium-term recovery interventions with long-term resilience building activities designed to reduce the vulnerability and exposure to drought and climate and related disaster risks. The gist of the enquiry resonates around interrogating the approaches adopted by the government of Kenya and other stakeholders during the 2015/2017 drought that devastated communities in the Arid and Semi Arid (ASAL) counties of Turkana and Kilifi. Participatory, consultative and deductive research methods including household surveys, focused group discussions, key informants interviews, observations and review of literature have be employed in the collection of empirical, descriptive, and spatial data to provide for the appraisal. Findings of this study are expected to make significant contributions to agenda item number four of the newly adopted government of Kenya ‘Big Four’ development roadmap constituting: Manufacturing, Affordable Housing, Universal Health Care and Food Security for all Kenyans within the next five years (2018 – 2022).