Kenya - August 2019 Situation Report

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Kenya - August 2019 Situation Report
Monday, September 30, 2019
  • People in need: According to Long Rains Assessment(LRA) 2019, the overall food security in the Arid and Semi-Arid Lands Counties deteriorated 2019 with more households in crisis and emergency phase classification. A total of 2.56 million people still require immediate food assistance. This includes 2.26 million people who are in crisis drought classification and 298,000 people who are in emergency drought classification and require immediate food assistance.
  • Nutrition concerns: According to the LRA, the nutrition situation has worsened due to food insecurity compounded by high morbidity, limited access to health and nutrition services. An estimate of 623,814 children are in need of treatment for acute malnutrition and 69,325 pregnant and lactating women require treatment for malnutrition.
  • Refugee programming: The majority of refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya originate from Somalia (54.5%). Other major nationalities are South Sudanese (24.4%), Congolese (8.8%); Ethiopians (5.9%). Persons of concern from other nationalities including Sudan, Rwanda, Eritrea, Burundi, Uganda and others make up 6.4 % of the total population. Almost half of the refugees in Kenya (44%) reside in Dadaab, 40% in Kakuma and 16% in urban areas (mainly Nairobi), alongside 18,500 stateless persons (UNHCR, May 2019).
  • Food security outlook: According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) deteriorating food access and poor milk availability are pushing more households into Crisis (IPC Phase 3) in pastoral areas. Due to below-normal rangeland resource availability, livestock body conditions and value have declined. The decline in livestock prices coupled with rising staple food prices has caused the livestock-to-cereals terms of trade to fall, eroding household purchasing power. It is expected that decreased food and milk intake is driving atypically high malnutrition prevalence in children under five years of age.