Women-led families in Samburu bear brunt of climate change
Women crowd at a common water point in Ngutuk Ongiron village, Samburu County, on February 8. Women-headed households are the most vulnerable to climate change effects, a new report suggests.
What you need to know:
- The study by the International Organisation for Migration focussed on drought-induced mobility and identified the most urgent sectoral needs experienced by the community.
- The needs include livelihoods, water sanitation and hygiene, health, emergency shelters, non-food items and education.
Samburu women-headed households are the most vulnerable group in a county dealing with dire consequences of climate change, a new report has suggests.
The Mobility Tracking and Multi-Sectoral Location Assessment baseline assessment linked the vulnerability of 34,647 women-led households to their high exposure to protection issues, such as gender-based violence (GBV), lack of access to basic social and maternal services, lack of employment opportunities in the rural settings.
“In 85 per cent of the sub-locations, shelters were substandard, only made of light materials and not stable enough to withstand any environmental hazards and security threats, which also increased the vulnerabilities of the displaced population groups to safety and security issues,” the report states.
“It takes more than 45 minutes for more than 48 per cent of women in the County to walk to a water point, in a one-way trip.”
Needs
The study by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) focussed on drought-induced mobility and identified the most urgent sectoral needs experienced by the community, including livelihoods, water sanitation and hygiene, health, emergency shelters, non-food items and education.
“The county is in need of further humanitarian support with or without the sufficient rainfall, since the prolonged drought has already been affecting the lives of mobile population, which has compromised their safety and security. Early forecasting models also pointed towards depressed rainfall during the March-to-May 2023 long rain season.”
Other vulnerable groups identified in the report included children and the elderly. “Cases of early marriages emerged in seven sub-locations as a way to escape from poverty, hoping to have a decent life. Child labour outside of wards, was also reported in five sub-locations.”
“Nakupurat, Moruakiring and Lokorkor sub-locations in Samburu North do not have educational facilities because they were closed when learners dropped out as a result of intense drought and conflicts.”
The report recommends that humanitarian assistance be provided in a timely manner to people in desperate need, to improve the living conditions of the displaced and host community households to cope with the adverse impact of drought.
Additionally, cross-cutting issues, such as protection and conflict mitigation should further be addressed in a broader human sense of security, through a multi-stakeholder and collective intervention approach among the government and humanitarian agencies.
Lastly, the study called on the national government’s administrative units to work with the county government and international partners to address the issues.
Data collection was conducted across the three sub-counties of Samburu in 16 wards, 110 sub-locations, and 686 settlements.
