HTTP 200 OK
Allow: GET, PUT, PATCH, DELETE, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Vary: Accept
{
"id": 142357,
"url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/142357/?format=api",
"text_counter": 335,
"type": "other",
"speaker_name": "",
"speaker_title": "",
"speaker": null,
"content": "mitigation efforts. That will include resource management involving infrastructure in the drought prone areas, promoting income, planning for contingencies as well as capacity building in the communities that are living in the drought prone environment. On the second stage, it will prepare for the drought. It will start strategically to stock cereals, rehabilitate strategic or critical boreholes, promote livestock marketing interventions and also intervene in human and livestock health as well as provide supplementary feeds for livestock. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, at the third stage, which is the response and relief stage, the Authority will intervene in human and animal health. That stage, which is the drought emergency, the Authority will focus on saving lives and livelihoods at a very critical stage of the drought cycle. The Authority will provide emergency water supplies, supplementary feeds for both livestock and vulnerable groups and also, specifically, to people who are living in those areas. At that particular time, the livelihoods that support such communities will have collapsed. It will be very critical for the people to be fed by the Government and other development actors. Finally, once the rains come, it will be very important for the Authority to invest in long- term development interventions which will mitigate and manage drought. At the recovery stage, it will basically restock the pastoralists and assist them to rebuild the herds that they have lost. It will be a time to build capacity and develop infrastructure that will have been destroyed during the drought through food for work and cash for work and investing in natural resource management. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if the Drought Management Authority is functional and well funded, it will accelerate development in drought prone areas in northern Kenya by safeguarding their livelihood assets. The drought management interventions will contribute significantly towards poverty alleviation. The activities of the Authority, if well funded and managed, will enable the Government to realize its Vision 2030 and, at the same time, make progress towards realizing the Millennium Development Goals, especially the ones dealing with poverty and access to water and education. The Drought Management Authority interventions will usher in a strategic change in drought management by focusing on livelihood strategies by moving away from life saving approaches that have been with us since Independence, which for sure, have made a lot of progress towards saving lives, but not livelihoods of the pastoralists and other communities living in the drought prone areas. It is very important to save lives and there is nothing that we can compare with the value of human life. If the pastoralists have lost their livelihoods and year in, year out, they depend on food aid, are they living a dignified life? I am not a philosopher but sometimes I tend to wonder whether it is even worth living such a life. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, this Authority should focus and implement activities from a livelihood point of view. It should also usher in new thinking in drought management. We will realize once and for all that drought is not an emergency. Drought is inevitable in the Arid and Semi Arid Lands. About 10 million Kenyans are suffering today because as a State, we have failed to plan. Since we know we have drought every three to five years, we can plan and mitigate drought emergencies. Today, as a result of poor planning, over 10 million Kenyans are suffering. Millions of other Kenyans have moved to neighbouring countries to safeguard their livelihood. With those few remarks, I beg to move. I call upon Mr. Ekwe Ethuro to second this Motion."
}