(Nairobi, 14 December): The United Nations and partners today launched the 2013 appeal for humanitarian funding support for Kenya, likely to be the last year of doing so as the country transitions from humanitarian crisis to recovery. The new year marks the third and final year of Kenya’s three-year Emergency Humanitarian Response Plan (EHRP), which comprises 116 projects from more than 50 organizations requesting a grand total of US$743 million to assist nearly two million food-insecure Kenyans and 673,788 refugees residing in Kenya’s two refugee complexes.
To date since 2010, donors have very generously contributed more than $1.7 billion in support of humanitarian relief efforts in Kenya.
Kenya continues to experience humanitarian emergencies linked to natural disasters such as drought and floods, etho-political and resource-based conflicts, and outbreak of human and livestock diseases. The situation in Somalia and South Sudan continues to send more refugees into Kenya, insecurity in north-eastern Kenya persists, while the March 2013 elections risk increasing inter-communal violence. Despite these challenges, the country is making impressive progress towards consolidating the gains of humanitarian investment and creating an enabling environment to link emergency assistance to longer-term development programming. 2013 marks the end of the multi-year strategy and the transition to longer-term programming through the engagement of development networks.
“The 2011-2013 EHRP and multi-year strategy has enabled humanitarian actors to not only plan responses to immediate and acute needs, but also to integrate resilience in programming,” said Patrick Lavand’homme, head of Kenya coordination at OCHA Eastern Africa. “This has contributed to the enhancement of national and local capacity for emergency preparedness and response.”
The 2011 Short Rains and the 2012 Long Rains seasons brought relief to protracted drought conditions, helping to reduce the number of food-insecure people from 3.75 million at the beginning of the year to 2.1 million as of October. It is expected that the current Short Rains will further improve the food-security condition. Nutrition surveys carried out in Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASAL) in 2012 also reflect this improvement, showing significantly reduced malnutrition levels in many areas. However, the situation in Wajir County and Mandera East has not improved, and this will require special attention in 2013.
For further information, please contact:
Patrick Lavand’homme, Head of Kenya Coordination, lavandhomme@un.org, Tel. +254 (0)20 7625148, Cell +254 (0) 710 602326
Lucy Dickinson, Humanitarian Affairs Officer, dickinsonl@un.org, Tel. +254 (0)20 7625191, Cell +254 (0) 722 521031
OCHA press releases are available at www.unocha.org or www.reliefweb.int
www.unocha.org
The mission of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is to mobilize and coordinate effective and principled humanitarian action in partnership with national and international actors.