Why our leaders have flopped in tackling disasters

We expect a responsible government to be keen on disaster management by enacting sound policies that create sufficient room for their organic growth.

This way, every citizen is consciously made aware of what measures to take in reducing risks on the many disasters that hover above our heads each day.

But in Kenya, there are missing links. We have experienced several avoidable disasters, from road accidents, floods and collapsed buildings to drought. These have, unfortunately, been treated as normal accidents.

They could have been avoided. The rapid increase in disaster frequency and intensity has already created devastating impacts on lives, livelihoods, property and productive-development systems and on the environment.

Broadly, Kenya lacks policies on disaster preparedness. Various factors contribute to this sad state of affairs. At the top is the slow enactment of supportive laws for disaster risk reduction to protect human lives.

There is also a lack of political will, which has led to failure to recognise disaster management as a priority area. Weak coordination and engagement of key stakeholders have also been lacking for many years.

Financial allocations

In March 2016, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) commissioned a study on Kenya’s preparedness for three natural disasters: Droughts, floods, and disease outbreaks.

The study picked two counties as case studies: Mandera and Migori. The study looked into several factors, such as governance and legal, preparedness capacity, linkages to international processes of disaster preparedness and financial allocations.

The study identified the lack of policy on disaster management at all levels of government as the key weakness. It recommended a multi-stakeholder approach in defining policies with accountability mechanisms to reduce disaster losses.

This approach should draw representatives from government, NGOs, UN agencies and other donors, academia, media, private sector and other development practitioners in disaster preparedness.

There are multiple coordination platforms across the various actors, yes, which are perceived as useful, but only rely on good working relationships.

The agencies responsible for different disasters should feed into a higher-level coordinating body that coordinates responses to disasters.

Lack of cooperation between the policy implementers and the target beneficiary is not only in disaster management in Kenya but a problem that cuts across many other areas.

Policymaking and implementation through a top-down command has not worked well and we need a change in approach to other models that are accountable and insulated from retrogressive political patronage.