National Drought Management Authority

Drought is one of the most important environmental hazards in the Horn of Africa region, causing annual human and livestock losses and multi-million dollar economic losses. Monitoring and timely detection of drought plays a key role in natural resource management and mitigating its impacts. One of the common methods for monitoring agricultural drought is the use of the Vegetation Condition Index (VCI) based on remote sensing. While useful, the VCI has also several substantial limitations and cannot be a robust and generalizable method for different regions due to differences in climate, land cover, and spatio-temporal dynamics. In this study, a new and robust framework for drought detection based on MODIS time-history satellite images is developed. This method uses the NDVI and statistical analysis based on percentiles to define dynamic thresholds that depend on the climatic conditions of each region. Thus, the proposed method is not dependent on fixed values ​​and is able to adaptively consider spatial and temporal changes in vegetation cover. The proposed framework has been tested in several counties in Kenya and its results have been validated with field reports and ground data. The results show that the proposed method has a higher ability to identify drought robustly than methods based on fixed thresholds and can be used as an effective tool for drought monitoring in regions with diverse climates and land cover.

ABSTRACT Drought and food security crises heighten risks to lives and livelihoods in East Africa. In recent years, a shift towards acting in advance of such events has gained momentum, notably among the humanitarian and development community. This shift is premised on tools that link climate forecasts with pre-agreed actions and funding, known as Forecast-based Action (FbA), or anticipatory action more widely. While FbA approaches have been developed by a number of humanitarian agencies, the key to scaling-up is mainstreaming these approaches into national risk management systems. This paper addresses this gap in the context of drought risk management in Kenya. We analyse Kenya's current drought management system to assess the potential usability of climate forecast information within the existing system, and outline steps towards improved usability of climate information. Further, we note the critical importance of enabling institutions and reliable financing to ensure that information can be consistently used to trigger early action. We discuss the implications of this for scaling-up FbA into national risk management systems.

This qualitative research study used a phenomenological lens to examine the perspectives of familial caregivers in the Laikipia Region of Kenya. Through the narrative of the caregivers’ lived experience, key factors identified included social supports, rewards of caregiving, and lessons to others. Overarching basic themes centered on food insecurity, disease, rejection, lack of support, education challenges, inadequate land ownership, the absence of male support and neglect issues. These unique perspectives can contribute towards our understanding of policy and programming needs for orphaned children and familial caregivers in rural Kenya and within the rural areas of the East African context.

This report provides case studies of Early Warning Systems (EWSs) and risk assessments encompassing three main hazard types: drought; flood and cyclone. The case studies are taken from ten countries across three continents (focusing on Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean). The case studies have been developed to assist the UK Department for International Development (DFID) to prioritise areas for Early Warning System (EWS) related research under their ‘Science for Humanitarian Emergencies and Resilience’ (SHEAR) programme. The aim of these case studies is to ensure that DFID SHEAR research is informed by the views of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and communities engaged with Early Warning Systems and risk assessments (including community-based Early Warning Systems). The case studies highlight a number of challenges facing Early Warning Systems (EWSs). These challenges relate to financing; integration; responsibilities; community interpretation; politics; dissemination; accuracy; capacity and focus. The case studies summarise a number of priority areas for EWS related research: • Priority 1: Contextualising and localising early warning information • Priority 2: Climate proofing current EWSs • Priority 3: How best to sustain effective EWSs between hazard events? • Priority 4: Optimising the dissemination of risk and warning information • Priority 5: Governance and financing of EWSs • Priority 6: How to support EWSs under challenging circumstances • Priority 7: Improving EWSs through monitoring and evaluating the impact and effectiveness of those systems