MOTION - DROUGHT AND HUNGER MITIGATION IN TURKANA COUNTY THAT, AWARE THAT Turkana County …
Motion text
MOTION - DROUGHT AND HUNGER MITIGATION IN TURKANA COUNTY THAT, AWARE THAT Turkana County continues to experience extremely dry weather conditions with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reporting that the aggregate rainfall for the six- month period ending September 2022 represented only 21 percent of the normal rainfall; FURTHER AWARE THAT the prevailing weather conditions have resulted in the drying up of wells, boreholes, loss of pasture, and crops, therefore rendering any form of farming impracticable; ACKNOWLEDGING THAT the residents of the County are predominantly pastoralists who keep cattle, donkeys, camels, and goats for food and income, and that the loss of these livestock is a loss of livelihood for them; NOTING THAT the prevailing drought has resulted in the death of more than half of the livestock in the County thereby pushing eight hundred thousand residents to the brink of starvation and resulting in the highest ever rate of acute malnutrition in the County at 33%; FURTHER NOTING THAT residents have been forced into migration with their livestock in search of pasture and water which has exposed them to raids by bandits and resulting in children dropping out of school; CONCERNED THAT droughts have been recorded in the County since the 1960s and that the frequency of their occurrences has progressively increased with drought in the County becoming a yearly phenomenon; COGNIZANT THAT Article 43 of the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, stipulates the rights of every person to be free from hunger, to have adequate food of acceptable quality, and to clean and safe water in adequate quantities, and obliges the State to provide social security to persons unable to support themselves and their dependants; FURTHER COGNIZANT THAT Article 11 of the United Nation’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) places further emphasis on the fundamental right to food and obliges the State to take progressive steps towards achieving full realization of the right to adequate food; NOW THEREFORE the Senate urges the Ministries of Agriculture and Livestock Development; Water, Sanitation, and Irrigation; Education, and the Ministry of East African Community (EAC), the ASALs and Regional Development through the National Drought Management Authority, to come up with a policy framework to address the perennial drought in the County and to come up with policy programs addressing the current needs of the County to include: - i.) a roll out of a Rapid Response Initiative (RRI) programme of providing foodstuffs to the affected residents of the County to address immediate critical needs; ii.) an introduction of feeding programme in schools across the County; iii.) the drilling of water boreholes; and iv.) an institution of a livestock off-take programme to buy weak livestock.
Tracker remarks
Adopted without amendments on Thursday, 1.12.2022
Source: parliament.go.ke. Last updated 5 Jul 2026.