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Post distribution monitoring for the Kenya cash consortium response to the desert locust crisis and food insecurity in Asal counties of Kenya (February 2021)

Countries
Kenya
Sources
IMPACT Initiatives
Publication date
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BACKGROUND

The arid and semi-arid lands (ASAL) counties have been affected by climatic shocks including dry spells in the last quarter of 2020 and floods in April 2020. This, coupled with the desert locust infestation has increased the populations’ vulnerability to the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, affected their livelihoods, and amplified the food insecurity in those counties. In early February 2021, many small, highly mobile immature swarms of locusts were reportedly spread across the 23 ASAL counties. The locusts destroyed large areas of pasture and browse needed by pastoralists.

As of February 1, 2021 Kenya had had a total of 100,856 COVID-19 cases.This pandemic has continued to interrupt regular operations across multiple sectors of the economy due to containment measures put in place by the governmnet to mitigate the spread of the virus. The measures have negatively impacted markets, some were temporarily closed, which caused a disruption in food prices, incomes and livelihoods across the country. Early on in January 2021, the tax relief measures put in place to mitigate the effects of the pandemic such as reduction of the Value Added Tax (VAT) and income tax lapsed, while basic education learning institutions reopened all over the country.

In an urgent response to the humanitarian needs of the affected communities in Wajir, Mandera, Tana River, Garissa and Isiolo counties, the Kenya Cash Consortium (KCC) led by ACTED in partnership with Oxfam and their implementing partners, including The Pastoralists Girls Initiative (PGI), Arid lands Development Focus (ALDEF), Merti Intergrated Development Programme (MIDP), Wajir South Development Association (WASDA) and Rural Agency for Community Development and Assistance (RACIDA) are carrying out an emergency cash intervention programme for the affected populations.

To monitor the impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers (UCTs) provided by the KCC to additional new beneficiary households (HHs) in the targeted ASAL counties, IMPACT Initiatives conducted a baseline assessment from 18 to 26 November 2020 followed by the first post distribution monitoring (PDM) assessment on 14 to 18 December 2020. The baseline survey found out that 73% of the households recorded a poor food consumption score (FCS) suggesting that most HHs do not consume foods from different groups this proportion reduced to 67% of HHs during the first PDM assessment.

This factsheet presents an overview of the findings of the second PDM assessment conducted from 1 to 4 February 2021, as well as a comparison of key indicators to the baseline and first PDM assessment findings. These findings are representative of UCTs beneficiary HHs at a 95% confidence level and a 10% margin of error at county level. Findings relating to a subset of that population may have a lower confidence level and a wider margin of error.