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Drought conditions set to continue in Kenya this year, affecting 3.4 million people

Países
Kenia
+ 2
Fuentes
UNICEF
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Total people in need: 3.96 million

Total children (<18) in need: 1.8 million

Total people to be reached: 1.6 million

Total children to be reached: 1.1 million

In Kenya, drought conditions that are expected to persist into 2018 have left 3.4 million people severely food insecure and an estimated 500,000 people without access to water. An estimated 482,882 children require treatment for acute malnutrition, including 104,614 who are suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM). Eighty-eight per cent of these children are from 23 arid and semi-arid counties. Drought conditions have led to declines in school attendance and school participation and rising dropout rates. Flash floods, inter-communal conflicts and doctors' and nurses' strikes have disrupted health services and undermined emergency response capacity. Disease outbreaks continue to threaten child survival. In 2017, 3,518 cholera cases and 66 deaths were reported—a case fatality rate of 1.9 per cent. Kenya has also reported outbreaks of malaria, measles, dengue fever and kala-azar, with alerts issued for Marburg virus disease and plague, and continuing risk of measles and polio outbreaks. Kenya hosts 489,239 refugees, primarily from Somalia and South Sudan, 57 per cent of whom are under 18. In 2018, an estimated 20,000 new refugees from South Sudan are expected to arrive in Kenya. Since 2015, 74,451 refugees from Dadaab have been repatriated to Somalia, with a similar trend anticipated for 2018.

Humanitarian strategy

In 2018, UNICEF will continue to strengthen its engagement with Kenya's decentralized system of governance by supporting county capacities for emergency preparedness and response and direct implementation. UNICEF will focus on strengthening sector coordination, including multi-sectoral coordination at national and sub-national levels and cross-border coordination.

Education will serve as a platform for integrated service provision, including engaging with and supporting shared goals related to building community resilience.

UNICEF and partners will respond to the survival and protection needs of more than 1 million children in emergency situations by delivering nutrition treatment; increasing access to safe water, hygiene and sanitation (WASH); strengthening disease prevention and response; improving access to quality education; and providing protection and mitigation services, particularly for children affected by natural disasters and resourcebased community conflicts. UNICEF’s emergency preparedness and response will bridge the humanitarian-development nexus through the use of scalable risk-informed programming (e.g. the nutrition surge model).

Communication for Development strategies will be used to mobilize, engage and provide information for community response and resilience building. UNICEF will respond to refugee influxes by providing emergency WASH, health, nutrition, education and protection services to new arrivals in Kakuma and children affected by the voluntary repatriation of refugees to Somalia.