UNITED NATIONS APPEALS FOR FUNDS TO ALLEVIATE KENYAN FOOD CRISIS

UNITED NATIONS APPEALS FOR FUNDS TO ALLEVIATE KENYAN FOOD CRISIS

NEW YORK, 10 August (Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) -- The United Nations -- along with the Kenyan Government and other partners -- today launched a flash appeal to rapidly mobilize funds and help get food and basic supplies to Kenya’s drought-affected population.  Amounting to almost $97,000,000, the appeal covers the six months between August 2004 and February 2005, and addresses needs in the following areas:  food, health and nutrition, water and sanitation, education, agriculture and livestock, and coordination and support services.

Erratic rainfall has caused massive crop failure in Kenya, prompting Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to declare a "national disaster”.  Food production in five out of Kenya’s seven provinces will only account for about 40 per cent of what is needed this year.  Currently, almost 2.3 million people need emergency relief assistance.  That includes 1.8 million requiring general food distribution and half a million school children in the school feeding programme.  The total food needed for the next six months is about 166,000 metric tonnes.

As well as distributing food and basic supplies to the hardest hit districts, humanitarian organizations plan to provide seeds to agricultural areas where crop losses have eroded seed stocks.  Their work is also taking into account the effects of aflatoxin, a harmful grain mold, which has already forced the Government to destroy some of its grain reserves.

United Nations agencies working with the Kenyan Government to ameliorate the situation include the World Food Programme (WFP), which is helping to coordinate food aid; the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which is responding to concerns over health, nutrition, water, sanitation and education; the World Health Organisation (WHO), which is also working to address health-related, nutritional and educational needs; the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), which is coordinating assistance to the agriculture sector; and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which is leading the international response.

For further information, please call:  Stephanie Bunker, OCHA New York,  tel: 917 367 5126, mobile: 917 892 1679; Elizabeth Byrs, OCHA Geneva, tel:  41 22 917 2653, mobile: 41(0) 79 473 4570.

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