Emergency Response

Sept. 4, 2009

The United Church of Canada will contribute $200,000 of funds held in trust in the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) to help address drought-induced hunger in the east African country of Kenya. The funds will be shared with fellow CFGB member Christian Reformed World Relief Committee (CRWRC), which is coordinating a large relief initiative in Kenya entitled Kenya Drought Relief Phase II: Food Aid and Food for Work for Drought-Affected People. The total amount of equity and CIDA matching funds will be over $500,000.

Canadians have recently seen TV images of once-productive Kenyan farmland reduced to cracked earth, malnourished children, and emaciated and dead livestock. The current situation of food insecurity in Kenya, which is threatening large-scale famine, was precipitated by lack of rain in October–December 2008, which resulted in a 99 percent crop failure in the target areas. The rains of March–July 2009 in these areas also failed. Poor rainfall distribution and high farm expenses deterred most farmers in Kenya's traditional "bread basket" area (Western Kenya and the Rift Valley) from planting in 2009. Poor management at the National Cereals and Produce Board has aggravated the situation because strategic grain reserves were depleted, thus disrupting distribution and inflating food prices.

The target areas in the eastern, coastal, and southern parts of Kenya are very dry areas with increasingly poor climate conditions. The majority of the inhabitants are subsistence farmers who have not had any meaningful harvest or livestock production in the last three seasons. Seventy-five percent of their herds have died while remaining livestock are emaciated.

Women and children are suffering the most under these exceedingly harsh conditions. According to UNICEF (The United Nations Children’s Fund) the rate of acute malnutrition in Kenya is between 10 and 20 percent (15 percent being the emergency threshold), with one out of five children affected by acute malnutrition.

CRWRC is working collaboratively with several Kenyan implementing partners including the Anglican Church of Kenya.

For more information contact

• Gary Kenny
  Program Co-ordinator for Southern Africa and Emergency Response
  Justice, Global and Ecumenical Relations Unit
  The United Church of Canada
  3250 Bloor St. West
  Toronto, ON  M8X 2Y4
  Tel: 416-231-7680, ext. 4051
  Toll-Free.: 1-800-268-3781 ext. 4051
  E-mail: Gary Kenny