Olympia-based international nonprofit uses its know-how to rush food to famine-struck region of Kenya

Four years of scant rain in Northern Kenya has brought the region to a dry spell. Without sufficient irrigation, crop yield has been slashed to inadequacy, driving a surge in food prices. The situation is only worsened by conflicts outside the country’s grasp, such as the war in Ukraine, which has impacted food supply chains around the entire globe.

Though outside its usual scope of work, Olympia-based non-profit Friendly Water for the World oversaw an emergency food delivery last week to Northern Kenya’s Samburu County. Their initiative demonstrated that despite sprawling complications, solutions to famine can be aided, even if not completely solved, by solutions available locally there.

The initiative was made possible due to the organization’s surplus salary funds in the fourth quarter of this year. It is worth noting that Friendly Water's everyday work does not center on emergency relief. Its staff in Olympia and Kenya work to train African communities how to build technologies and practices to sustain themselves with essential needs like water purification, sanitation, safe cooking and growing food. Click here for more information about Friendly Water.

Short-term answer

Food aid is usually a short-term solution to famine, requiring holistic problem-solving. Even Eric Lijodi, the organization’s project manager in Africa, thought that the national government had not yet taken any steps to address the famine in the long run.

“The government is putting up efforts to deliver relief food to families in the affected areas,” he stated. “However, it is also important to note the same government is yet to come up with long-term remedy measures to control hunger.”

Acknowledging this issue, it was important to show how an emergency food delivery can be a demonstration of a long-term solution. Friendly Water for the World, after all, works towards long-term solutions.

Friendly Water's Executive Director, Curt Andino, told The JOLT that he believes that part of the solution is showing local communities what a capable food distribution network looks like, one that is fueled by local resources and led by semi-local management.

For the relief effort, the organization oversaw the purchase and labeling of the food aid while a partner non-government organization lent a truck to deliver the supplies. They also informed the local government of their intentions during the process.

Lijodi noted that the famine situation is not the same in other parts of Kenya, where there are successful harvests this year.

“Food is plentiful, but the strategies necessary for running a country-wide distribution network are not,” Lijodi stated. “This was an opportunity to show what a semi-local county-to-county relief effort could look like.”

Food insecurity

Andino told The JOLT that the decision to conduct an emergency food delivery was made due to several factors.

First was the famine situation in Northern Kenya. There are over 3.5 million people in Kenya’s arid and semi-arid lands experiencing high levels of food insecurity, according to the September 2022 Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) scale, which measures the magnitude of food insecurity and acute malnutrition. This number is projected to rise to 4.3 million by the end of this year.

In Samburu County specifically, 140,000 residents are vulnerable to high levels of food insecurity. The IPC scale considers such levels as when households compromise their livelihood assets to meet their food needs. Households may also experience acute malnutrition as a result.

Lijodi stated that it is a common scenario to see Samburu residents chasing vehicles, hoping that they might receive something to alleviate their thirst and hunger.

Due to the famine, over 884,000 children aged six to 59 months are experiencing acute malnutrition, and 115,000 pregnant and lactating women go through the same. Lijodi added that some children are forced to drop out of school as they become too weak to attend classes.

Though Samburu County experiences severe famine, Lijodi acknowledged that much of Kenya received good rainfall this year, resulting in some good harvests compared to the Northern Kenya counties. It was perhaps because of this lack of awareness that no other organization from the W. Kenya had taken the initiative to send food aid to Samburu, according to Lijodi.

Demonstration of food aid as a long-term solution

Another factor why Friendly Water for the World stepped in was that it was an opportunity to demonstrate what can be accomplished using local resource management.

As this was a one-off project, Andino does not see Friendly Water for the World working on food aid again in the near future. He will make their organization available for logistical and management expertise to help develop a food distribution network.

“It’s important to recognize that we don’t limit ourselves to just what we know how to do; we strive to address challenges, whatever they may be,” Andino stated.

The famine situation is not local to Northern Kenya. Drought in the Greater Horn of Africa has led to 47 million people experiencing severe food insecurity in the region, which includes Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Sudan, South Sudan and Djibouti.