About 50 percent of Isiolo County residents are in need of food support following two years of insufficient rainfall.
According to a report from the National Drought Management Authority (NDMA), the county has a reduced income from various businesses, farming and livestock production.
The NDMA County Coordinator Lordman Lekalkuli said that the area people experienced an income reduction of 40 percent as adduced from a recent organization’s survey.
The NDMA boss made the remarks when he received European Union officials led by head of corporation Irene Giribaldi who were on a tour to inspect E.U projects in Isiolo County.
Lekalkuli added that the most affected sectors are education, health, water, agriculture and livestock where a number of local people were depending on cash transfer token received by relatives.
Status of malnutrition had shot from 15 to 18.7 percent where over 130, 000 people could only afford one or two meals per day.
Lekalkuli said that five rivers in Isiolo County had dried up causing a rise in human-wildlife conflicts which have led to loss of human lives and destruction of crops and related properties.
The Coordinator said that over 35 percent of the livestock were weak due to drought and could not fetch good prices at the local markets forcing herders to sell them at a throw-away prices for fear of further losses.
Giribaldi said that her organization would continue supporting the people affected by drought and keep on funding women projects in order to boost them economically.
All projects funded by EU would be completed on time despite the few that were slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic adding that her organization focuses on women projects like the ‘Anolei’ women savings and credit cooperative society. The society was funded by EU and has been supplying camel milk to Nairobi, Nakuru and Kajiado Counties.
She further said that her organization would chip in putting up a dairy camel milk factory locally in order to help them reduce current high cost of transporting raw milk to far distances.
The County Secretary Dr. Ahmed Galgallo said that the alarming drought has led to frequent conflicts among the herders and many lives lost in the last two months.
Dr. Galgallo appealed to EU to extend funding of their projects since COVID-19 had affected the completion period of many projects.
He said the drought situation worsened after long rains failed hence negatively affecting the livestock sector which is the local residents’ livelihood.
He added that many projects were yet to be completed as some development partners closed operations or reduced workloads to the minimal during the COVID-19 epidemic.
