Water Sector Desk Review Samburu And Turkana Counties

USAID

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Abstract: In the Arid and Semi Arid Lands in northern Kenya,the daily struggle to access water is emblematic of the entwined challenges of poverty,insufficient infrastructure and inadequate governance. Mostly rural and deeply remote,the pastoralist communities in Samburu and Turkana counties are suffering under the increasing burden of climate change,with consequences that include longer dry seasons,deeper droughts and dwindling supplies of the surface water that are relied upon for household and productive use. The scarcity of water resources in these areas makes the provision of Water,Sanitation and Hygiene services a difficult proposition,which in turn is contributing to the under-development of these communities and is a causal factor for the persistent and acute malnutrition that routinely afflicts some 35% of the children under age five among them. Such scarcity is putting Sustainable Development Goal 6 far beyond the reach of the country as a whole,even as there is some degree of improvement nationwide in that 59% of Kenyans are meant to have at least basic access to drinking water.