Press briefing not 22-7-2011
The organisation is spending US$ 400,000, provided by the UN
Central Emergency Response Fund, (CERF) to assist some 40,000
vulnerable pastoralists in the region, 60% of them being
women.
The funds will be used in a six-month emergency programme that
will involve the re-stocking households with camels, which are more
resistant to drought and diseases than the traditional goats and
sheep and will provide milk to beneficiaries.
The emergency programme will also include the rehabilitation
of water retention structures and wells along livestock migratory
routes, the provision and distribution of health kits and
supplement feed for the livestock. Community training for herders
on pasture storage, conservation and use will also take
place.
This initiative will involve local communities in the
construction and maintenance of efficient water harvesting
structures, which should help provide additional income through
food growing activities that will help beneficiaries cope with ever
increasing food prices.
IOM will work in partnership with the Kenyan
government’s Ministry of Livestock, the Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO), local NGOs and community leaders.
Pastoralist communities are particularly affected by the
drought as they face the imminent threat of losing their
livelihoods as their weakened herds struggle to survive disease,
hunger and thirst in an increasingly desperate search for pasture
and water.
While humanitarian agencies at Dadaab are focussing on
providing much needed assistance to the daily flow of refugees,
more attention needs to the paid to the needs of the host
communities.
The three Daadab refugee camps, which were originally meant to shelter 90,000 people, are now accommodating more than 383,000 people, making them the largest refugee camps in the world.
Meanwhile, IOM’s project to provide emergency assistance to
counter acute watery diarrhoea outbreaks in the northern Turkana
County has received a boost from CERF funding to the tune of US$
115,000.
Under the project, IOM will work in close collaboration with
the local and international health partners, including
AMREF, WHO, IRC and MSF, to reach some 55,000 vulnerable
individuals, mostly women and children under the age of five. This
group is particularly at risk of water borne diseases due to the
drought which is forcing them to use contaminated water.
IOM will assist in the provision of essential drugs and
equipment to the district medical centres and will contribute
towards the containment of the outbreak through the provision of
water purification tablets and through community awareness raising
activities.
IOM has in the past implemented three emergency health
response projects through CERF allocations following cholera
outbreaks in northern Kenya
For more information, please contact Dr Galev
Aleksandar at IOM Nairobi, Tel: +254 20444174/164 ext 236/+254
733860045; Email: AGalev@iom.int
